


Stuck in a Rut

by phan_anon



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - School, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Anal Fingering, Anal Fisting, Biting, Blood, Blow Jobs, Bonding, Docking, Fluff and Smut, Grinding, Hand Jobs, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Intercrural Sex, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Verse, Omega!Dan, Prostate Milking, Rich!Phil, Rimming, Sex Toys, Shower Sex, Slave!Dan, Somnophilia, Threesome - M/M/M, Wet Dream, alpha!Phil
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-05-05 07:20:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 59,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5366285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phan_anon/pseuds/phan_anon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alpha!Phil is a young member of a noble family, and Omega!Dan is his slave. When the Alpha experiences his first rut, their relationship undergoes a drastic change.</p><p>(Also, just fyi, the society they live in is partially based on ancient Rome and partially based on the modern UK.)</p><p>Winner of 3rd place in the Best Smut category of the 2015 Phanfic Awards!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stuck in a Rut

**Author's Note:**

> I submitted this anonymously to phanfic on tumblr, but then I decided I wanted more people to see it...and I wanted to write sequels. The next part will be up very soon! (Someone please save me from all of my SIN.)
> 
> Edit: Chapter 2 is now up!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alpha!Phil goes through his first rut with help from his slave, Omega!Dan.

At first, Phil’s little whines and whimpers didn’t wake Dan from his sleep. He’d worked hard the day before, carrying his Master’s books to and from the Academy for him, serving him lunch, and running little errands for him. He’d earned his rest, and so at first the soft sounds from the bed above him had merely entered his dreams and made them restless. A boring dream about buying groceries at the shops had shifted into one full of the heavy scent of Alpha and vague longings that he was still too inexperienced to entirely understand.

 

But then Phil let out a long, high-pitched whine that finally jolted Dan out of his confusing dreams. He woke to find himself panting, with an unusual, tight feeling in his lower abdomen. His heart was racing.

 

He didn’t know at first why he was awake or why his body felt so unusually warm, but then he heard the sound again, a low whimper in the back of the throat. Since it hadn’t come from Dan’s own throat, he knew it must have come from the only other person in the room, his Master, Alpha Phil.

 

A moment later, his nose caught a whiff of the scent filling the room, and a wave of hot pleasure rolled through his abdomen. He sat up, inhaling deeply of the musky aroma of aroused Alpha. He’d caught similar scents before, but never so strong or so close. And it had never affected him this way before. His whole body was trembling, his heart hammering in his chest, his breath coming in pants. And then he felt it, a trickle of slick sliding down the back of his left thigh.

 

The Alpha still lay on the bed above him, and in the faint moonlight passing through the curtains over the room’s window, he could see that Phil was lying on his stomach, cheek pressed into his pillow and body moving slowly up and down as his hips thrust ineffectually against his bed sheets.

 

Not knowing quite what he was doing, Dan shoved his own covers aside and stood from the small pallet where he slept on the floor beside Phil’s bed. He bent near the Alpha, trying to get a better sense of what was wrong with him, but as he drew closer to the other’s face, his senses were suddenly flooded with Phil’s strong scent. His heartbeat kicked up a notch, and even more slick began to trickle down the backs of his thighs and the insides of his legs.

 

His thoughts were scattered. He was still not fully awake, and the Alpha pheromones were clouding his mind, making it hard for him to form any thought beyond the need to be closer to Phil.

 

Something deep and innate within him was compelling him to climb into bed beside the other boy, to snuggle up close to him and press his skin against Phil’s skin.

 

His thoughts weren’t clear enough for him to come up with any good reasons to resist this urge, so he pulled off his pajama shirt, lifted Phil’s duvet, and slid into the warm space beside him.

 

Once there, he cuddled as close to the other as he could, sliding his arm over his Master’s back and burying his nose in the fragrant heat of his neck. He breathed deeply of that glorious scent again, his thoughts growing more muddled by the moment. He didn’t know what he was doing or what was happening, only that he needed to be closer to Phil, even closer than he was now, impossible though that seemed.

 

For Phil’s part, his sleep had started out nearly as deep as the Omega’s. He’d spent a long day with his tutors at the Academy, and after returning home, his Alpha Father had wanted to take him out to his club with some of his colleagues from the Senate. Phil had turned sixteen recently, and now that he was nearing adulthood, his Alpha Father had told him it was time he began to build his connections within the adult world. They’d kept him there until many hours after nightfall, drinking strong wine and discussing politics (a topic Phil only occasionally found interesting). 

 

When he’d returned home, he still had reading to complete for the next day’s lectures at the Academy. Fortunately, his body slave, Omega Dan, had laid out all his books for him with the necessary pages marked, and he’d been there as Phil read late into the night, fetching him water or helping him with some concept that he hadn’t fully comprehended during the lecture. Dan came to the Academy with him every day and sat patiently at the back of the classroom with a few other Omega slaves belonging to Phil’s elite Alpha classmates. Despite being an Omega, Dan was very sharp, and over the years he had learned to pick up on the signs that Phil was struggling with something in one of his lectures. He always made sure to pay extra close attention at those moments so that he could explain it to Phil later when they were alone. Though Phil was nominally the only one being educated at the Academy, Dan heard every lecture he did and read most of the same readings he was assigned. Like many slaves belonging to Patrician families, Dan was actually far better educated than many poorer freemen.

 

Phil was dreaming about Dan now. The dream had started out innocently enough, with him and Dan sitting near the window in his bedroom as they often did in the evenings, looking out at the city below together and having a silly conversation about something like “what if a world existed where everyone was a beta?” or “what if the moon really is made of cheese?” But at some point, the dream had changed, or rather, his feelings within the dream had changed. He’d looked at Dan and suddenly longed to move closer to him, to touch him, to press his nose against his neck and breathe deeply of his Omega scent.

 

So he’d done just that, standing and walking over to his slave, ruffling his fingers through his curly brown hair and running the tip of his nose lightly over the skin of his neck. In the dream, this had caused the Omega to sigh and shiver, and Phil’s heart had started pounding. The dream had shifted all at once, as dreams often do, and suddenly he’d found himself in his bed with Dan beneath him, and he was pulling off the Omega’s clothes with eager hands. The Omega’s arms were around him, and he was panting and whispering encouragements, urging Phil to move faster, to move closer, to hurry up and make him feel good.

 

Phil had never mated with anyone before, though ever since his Alpha Father had bought Dan for him, he’d known that that’s exactly what they would do someday. He’d never thought too carefully about it before. Dan was his slave. Dan was his Omega. Dan was his closest friend, the most constant thing in his day-to-day life. He was already so much to Phil that it had never felt necessary to make him his mate as well.

 

But now, within the dream, he knew that was the one thing he wanted most. He’d seen Dan without his clothes on countless times over the years, and so his imagination had no difficulty conjuring up the beautiful image of the Omega naked beneath him in his bed, the golden brown skin of his chest rising and falling with each panting breath and his soft brown eyes full of a desire Phil had never seen in them in real life.

 

“Knot me, Alpha Phil,” dream Dan murmured to him, parting his knees to let Phil sink down between them. “Make me yours.”

 

Phil wasn’t aware that every longing whimper he made in the dream was spilling from his lips in real life. All he knew was that he was burying his nose in his Omega’s scent and running his fingers up and down the warm skin of his sides and pressing his hard cock against his slicked entrance.

 

He knew when the dream changed again, when suddenly the smell and the warmth of Dan became stronger, more real, almost overwhelming. He reached out his arms and pulled the dream Dan even closer, brushing his cheek all along his smooth neck and sighing at the change in the Omega’s smell as Phil’s scent mingled with it.

 

“My Omega,” he whispered, and in the bed beside him, Dan heard the indistinct words and whimpered softly as Phil’s arms around him tightened. Phil’s face was pressed all against his neck, and he could smell the change in both of their scents. Phil had never scented him before, and the fact that he had now made Dan feel almost giddy. The Alpha’s scent had already been driving him wild, but their two scents mixed together was the most heavenly aroma Dan thought he’d ever inhaled.

 

“My Alpha,” Dan whispered back, tilting his head back to give Phil access to more of his throat. Normally, he would have thought of this as a risky move. Gone as Phil was, he could unknowingly bite Dan’s bonding gland and bond them for good right then and there. But at the moment all Dan could think about was how the sensation of the Alpha’s breath running over his skin was sending pleasurable chills all throughout his body.

 

Without warning, Phil pulled away from Dan, his arms releasing him only to allow his hands to take hold of the Omega’s body and roll him over onto his stomach. Dan didn’t know what the Alpha was doing to him until he felt Phil’s weight on top of him and the hard length of his cock pressing against Dan’s buttocks through both of their pajama bottoms.

 

Dan moaned low in his throat at the sensation. He’d been bought by Phil’s family when he was only nine years old, and since then he had known that someday Phil would knot him and bond with him, but the idea had never meant much to him before. He’d seen Phil naked countless times, when he helped him dress or readied his bath for him. He’d found it interesting, found the size of his Alpha cock impressive, but he’d never felt any particular compulsion to become more closely acquainted with it.

 

Now he could think of nothing else. Phil’s hips were pressing his into the soft mattress, his thick member sliding against the place where Dan’s buttocks met, and Dan’s own cock was growing increasingly hard as it rubbed against the bed beneath them. The Alpha’s hands were on his shoulders, holding him down though Dan offered no resistance, and he was once again nosing at Dan’s neck. His breath was hot and harsh near Dan’s ear, and he could hear every groan and sigh the Alpha made with perfect clarity. His every sense was overwhelmed with Alpha, but more than that, his every thought was flooded with _Phil_.

 

Phil’s dream had grown even more intense as he unknowingly scented the Omega and his body began to react to the change in their scents. He’d seen Dan laid out on the bed beneath him, lying on his stomach, face turned to the side so he could watch as Phil took him from behind. He’d shivered at the sounds Dan made, letting out a low groan or high-pitched whine every time Phil thrust deep into him. Phil felt himself nearing the edge, pushed closer and closer by the Omega’s eager expression, his mixed scent, and the glowing pleasure Phil felt between his legs. As a virgin, he didn’t really know what it would feel like to be inside an Omega, but his imagination was supplying a close enough approximation that he soon found himself coming, pushing hard into the Omega, Dan’s name falling soft and fast from his lips.

 

Dan felt the Alpha’s movements growing jerkier and more erratic, heard his breathing growing faster and more ragged, and when at last he felt the hot moisture of Phil’s cum seeping through their pajama bottoms and he heard Phil muttering his name like a litany, it sent him over the edge as well, the wetness of his cum combining with the trails of slick sliding out of him so that his pajama bottoms were now soaked through.

 

It was his orgasm that finally woke Phil. He’d masturbated before, of course, and even had a few wet dreams, but he’d never come so hard or so intensely any of those times. It was the intensity of it that jolted him into consciousness.

 

He opened his eyes to the sight of Dan’s naked back, pale blue in the moonlight, and the hair on the back of his head all mussed from where Phil had run his fingers through it. He saw his own hands clenched hard against the Omega’s shoulders. Then he felt the wetness at his crotch and realized that it was still pressed against Dan’s firm bottom.

 

He blinked for a moment and then quickly let go and backed away, scooting backwards over onto the other side of the bed. His eyes never left the Omega’s prostrate form, though. Just the sight of him, laid out there like that, face turned toward Phil, with a large wet patch on the back of his pajamas, was making Phil hard again.

 

The Alpha reached up to wipe his forehead and discovered that it was beaded with sweat.

 

“W-what…what did I do to you?” he whispered, keeping his voice low, worried that one of the house slaves or his family members in nearby rooms might hear.

 

Dan lay on his stomach still, trying to catch his breath as he came down from his high. He too couldn’t take his eyes away from the other. Phil’s pajama shirt was half-unbuttoned and shoved to the side, revealing a tantalizing expanse of chest, and his hair was sticking up in the front where he’d been rubbing his face against his pillow.

 

“You only scented me, Alpha Phil,” Dan murmured.

 

Phil drew in a deep breath. Yes, he could smell it now, that Dan’s Omega scent had been mingled with some of his own. Just the thought of it was enough to make his head spin.

 

“I-I’m sorry,” Phil said. “I didn’t know what I was doing.”

 

“You don’t need to apologize,” Dan said, placing his hands against the mattress and lifting himself up at last. When he’d managed to struggle into a more or less upright position, he smiled shyly at his Master and lowered his eyes. “I’m your Omega. You can do with me what you like.”

 

A warmth flooded Phil’s chest at the Omega’s words. He knew that what he said was true. He’d always known that the slave was his, to do with as he pleased. The idea of it had never seemed so exciting before, though. Something was different about him tonight. Something had changed, and he was beginning to suspect what it might be.

 

“Why are you in my bed, Dan?” he asked after a moment, his voice shaking slightly. Everything in him was urging him to move close to the Omega again, to continue what he’d started, to claim him for real rather than only in a dream. It was taking all of his willpower to fight that urge.

 

Dan’s eyes dropped further, and he hugged his knees to himself.

 

“Y-you… You smelled really good, Alpha Phil. I wanted…to be closer to you…”

 

Phil wished he could pretend he didn’t know what the Omega meant. He and Dan had lived together, eaten together, slept in the same room, gone everywhere together for five years now. Dan had never mentioned thinking he smelled good before, though he personally thought the Omega smelled better than anyone he’d ever met. He smelled like summertime and chocolate and sleeping in late. Phil closed his eyes, drawing more of the Omega’s scent in through his nostrils. Tonight he also smelled of starry evenings sitting by the window and apple cider next to the fireplace in the dead of winter and staying up whispering in the dark and sex. Phil opened his eyes, his breaths coming in gasps, and he found that Dan was staring at him now.

 

“I think it’s my rut,” Phil whispered. “I think I’m starting my first rut.”

 

Dan nodded slowly, never taking his eyes from Phil’s face. Then as Phil watched, he climbed down off the bed, stood there for a moment, and then slid his pajama bottoms and underwear off, stepping out of them and leaving them on the floor at his feet. Phil stopped breathing for a moment at the sight of the Omega standing completely naked in the moonlight in front of him. Then Dan climbed back onto the bed and lay down on his stomach again. Now that he was no longer wearing his pajamas, Phil could see the glistening trails of slick running down the backs of his thighs, and he could smell the sticky, heady scent of it.

 

Dan turned his head to look at him again.

 

“You can do it for real now, Alpha,” Dan murmured, his mouth curling into a smile. “I know you need to.”

 

Phil’s breath came back in a ragged gasp. The Omega clearly wanted him, was offering himself to him. There he lay, spread out and ready for Phil to claim. He could feel his cock standing hard and painful against his abdomen, leaking precum against the trail of coarse hairs there. His hormones were coursing through his veins, and the intoxicating scent of Omega was clouding his thoughts, but he shook his head. He had to focus.

 

He could still remember the day about a year ago when his Alpha Father had called him into his study and closed the door.

 

“You’ll be a full-grown Alpha soon,” Father had told him, leaning forward on the desk and forming his fingertips into a triangle in front of his face. “Your Omega slave is growing up too. It won’t be long before he has his first heat and you have your first rut. I expect the two of you will be bonded before too many more years have passed.”

 

Phil had nodded. This was nothing new to him. Many of his Alpha friends had Omega companions who had been bought for them at a young age. His older Alpha sister had had one, and even his Alpha Father had. It was common wisdom that an Alpha and Omega brought together at a young age, who grew up together and experienced their first ruts and heats together, would be a strong bonded pair likely to create many healthy offspring. Phil himself had been born through such a pair. Phil’s Omega Mother had been with Father since she was five years old. She was a slave, just like Dan was, while Phil’s older Alpha sister was the child of Father’s noble Omega Husband. 

 

That’s why Phil’s sister would become the next head of the family. Phil was only a spare, though he had occasionally overheard whispers among the servants that Alpha Lester secretly loved the children of his slave better than those of his husband. Phil hoped that wasn’t true. He loved his half-siblings just as much as he loved his full ones.

 

“You are well aware that Omegas experience their first heat at a younger age than Alphas typically have their first rut,” his Alpha Father had continued, “so it is likely that your Omega will reach the age of his heat first. However, since you are the elder, there’s a possibility you will experience your first rut before then. I want to make it clear to you that your Omega can not be put on birth control until after his first heat. Do you understand?”

 

“Yes, Sir,” Phil had replied promptly. They’d had to learn all about ruts and heats and suppressants and birth control during a special lecture at the Academy. He’d felt a little awkward listening to the tutor drone on about Omega biology and Omegas’ lust for being knotted during heat while Dan had been sitting right there in the back of the classroom. It had been difficult to meet his eyes on their way home that day.

 

“Now, as you know, the Omega is yours to do with as you will,” Father had said. “It is up to you to decide when you will knot him, but you should bear in mind that it will also be up to you to deal with the consequences. An Alpha is nothing if they are unable to take responsibility for their own decisions.”

 

“Yes, Father,” Phil had agreed. It had been easy to nod and frown seriously while he was sitting in the quiet study across from his father. Now, though, with Dan lying ready and willing on the bed in front of him and his cock throbbing in his boxers and the hormones of his rut coursing through his bloodstream, he was so very tempted to just knot his Omega and deal with the consequences when they came.

 

“Oh, Dan,” he murmured, crawling over to the other boy and leaning over him to bury his face against the crease between his shoulder and neck yet again. Yes, he’d always loved the way the Omega smelled, but Dan’s scent had never had the power to make him absolutely delirious as it was doing right now.

 

“Make me yours, Alpha,” Dan murmured, just as he had in the dream, and Phil could hardly stand it.

 

With a groan, he grasped Dan by the wrist and pulled him up into a seated position.

 

“I can’t Dan, not yet,” he muttered, wanting to continue pulling him until he was pressed right against his chest. Instead, he kept his hand firmly on the other boy’s wrist, holding him at a safe distance. “You haven’t had your first heat, and you aren’t on birth control, and we don’t have any condoms.” He could have cursed himself for that last one. Why hadn’t he thought to buy some, or get some from the free clinic at the Academy, and keep them on hand just in case? He shook his head. No, he hadn’t been wrong. It wouldn’t be right to knot Dan yet, before he’d even reached his first heat. It was right to wait. At least, that’s what his brain was telling him. His body had a very different opinion on the topic, and he knew it was only a matter of time before the rut won out and his rational brain lost the argument.

 

Dan’s eyes dropped as his Alpha spoke. He knew Phil was right. Even if he wasn’t in heat, his body was responding to Phil’s rut. If the Alpha knotted him now, there was a strong possibility he would become pregnant. He was only fourteen, and the idea of having a baby so young was terrifying. Still, his Alpha was in rut, and even if they weren’t bonded yet, Dan couldn’t help feeling the need to help him through it.

 

He crawled closer to Phil, which was difficult to do as Phil still had a strong grasp on his wrist.

 

“I can help you, Alpha Phil,” he whispered. “Let me help you.”

 

Phil blinked down at the Omega crouched before him, their faces just inches apart. Didn’t Dan realize how dangerous it was to come so near him right now? 

 

Resting his weight on his left hand, the one still gripped by Phil, Dan reached up with his right hand and tugged at the waistband of the Alpha’s pajama bottoms.

 

“I can make you feel good another way,” Dan said, meeting his Alpha’s eyes for a moment before glancing down at where his hand clung to the elastic waistband of the pajamas.

 

The Omega’s words made Phil’s cock twitch and a wave of longing washed through him. He definitely needed to do _something_. As his rut grew stronger, it would grow more and more difficult to withstand his urges, and Dan was right. There were things they could do other than knotting. He let go of Dan’s left wrist, and the Omega immediately lifted it to where the other hand rested, tugging gently down on the elastic of his pajama bottoms, his curved knuckles brushing enticingly against the skin of Phil’s stomach. His cock twitched again.

 

“What are you going to do?” he asked, swallowing hard.

 

“Suck you,” Dan whispered. He smiled and then slipped his fingers into Phil’s boxers as well, pulling down until both the boxers and pajama bottoms were pooled around Phil’s knees where he knelt on the bed. Phil watched wide-eyed as the Omega lowered his face to Phil’s swollen member, which they could both now see was coated in trails of both cum and fresh precum. As Phil watched, Dan stuck out his tongue and licked the head of his cock clean, running his tongue over his lips afterward to remove the stickiness that clung to them.

 

The Alpha shuddered at the intensity of the sensation. Before he had time to even process it, though, Dan was pressing a kiss to the cleft bottom of the head of his cock and then parting his lips to let them slide over the head, sucking it slowly into his mouth. Phil kicked his chin back, overwhelmed by the way Dan’s lips enveloped him and the darts of pleasure shooting down through his thighs and up through his abdomen.

 

“Fuu-uck,” Phil breathed, his fingers weaving themselves into the Omega’s hair without him even realizing it.

 

Dan pulled off then and began licking at the rest of Phil’s cock, cleaning it and getting it wetter and slicker in the process. After a while, he moved back up to the head and sucked it in again, this time continuing farther down until he had half of the Alpha’s thick cock in his mouth. He raised one hand to wrap his fingers around the other half and then, without moving off, began to slide his tongue against the underside of the shaft, allowing his front teeth to graze ever so gently against the top of it.

 

Phil could do nothing but sit back and let the sensations wash over him. He had no idea how the Omega was so good at this, but he wasn’t about to question it. 

 

After a minute or so, Dan pulled up and, without breaking the suction of his lips against Phil’s cock, ran them down the underside of it to his balls, gently sucking one of them into his mouth, playing with it on his tongue for a moment, before sucking in the other in turn.

 

In his hyper-sensitive state, everything that the Omega was doing to Phil was magnified tenfold. He was already close, even though Dan had only barely started. As Dan moved his lips back up to the head and sucked it into his mouth again, Phil groaned out a warning.

 

“I’m close,” he muttered, twining his fingers more securely into Dan’s hair, unable to stop himself from starting to thrust against the other boy’s smooth tongue. He heard the Omega hum his understanding, but he didn’t pull off. Instead, he moved his hand back up to grip the base of Phil’s cock and he sucked even harder at it, pulling up and down along it without releasing the seal of his lips against the skin.

 

“Fuck, Dan, fuck!” Phil groaned, giving in to instinct entirely as he began thrusting raggedly into his Omega’s mouth. A moment later he was coming, the sticky cum spurting against Dan’s tongue and the back of his throat. He heard the other boy choking and gagging a bit, so he let go of his hair, and Dan pulled back enough that the tip of Phil’s cock was no longer so near the back of his mouth. He didn’t stop sucking, though, until the last drop of cum had slid down his throat.

 

When the Omega at last pulled off and sat back on his heels, Phil couldn’t help staring at the way he swallowed and licked his lips.

 

“You taste amazing, Alpha,” he murmured, his voice shaking just a bit. His dark eyes were shining in the moonlight, and Phil could almost swear he saw a flush on his cheeks, even in this faint light.

 

Overwhelmed with the flood of desire and affection that filled him at the sight of his Omega sat there, licking his cum from his lips, with his own small cock hard against his stomach and his thighs wet with slick, Phil took hold of his arms and pulled him up to press his lips harshly against the other’s. He heard Dan giggle, felt the vibrations of the sounds against his lips. He’d just come, but thanks to his rut he was already getting hard again. He almost wanted to cry from the frustration. He knew that if he just gave in and knotted Dan, his rut would end and they could both just go back to sleep, but until he knotted an Omega, his body would keep demanding he do so until the rut had fully run its course. He knew that that could be _days_ from now. How was he supposed to hold out until then?

 

Dan was giggling again, and Phil felt his fingers running up the Omega’s arms and into his thick, brown curls. He smelled like Phil and sweat and slick and home, and Phil hadn’t realized until that moment that he was actually in love with his slave. He felt the Omega’s lips parting, and he slipped his tongue between them, exploring the flavor of Dan’s mouth and of his own cum that lingered there.

 

“I want you, Alpha Phil,” Dan mumbled in a breathless voice after pulling away. “I want your knot. I want you to make me yours.”

 

Phil blinked down at him in surprise. He couldn’t deny that the Omega’s words were affecting him, making his stomach clench and his dick throb with pleasure. But Dan seemed strange, too giddy, his words too light. He’d seemed to understand earlier when Phil had explained why they couldn’t mate just yet. Had something changed? A moment later, it dawned on him. The Omega had just swallowed a large amount of the Alpha’s cum. He’d heard that in a strongly bonded pair, the Alpha’s ejaculate would sometimes affect the Omega like a drug, making them high off the taste of their mate. He and Dan weren’t bonded, but apparently the Omega’s body disagreed. No wonder his body had reacted so strongly to Phil’s rut, making him wet with slick even though he wasn’t in heat. It already considered Phil to be his mate.

 

Dan was leaning into him again, pushing his lips against Phil’s with an urgency that made him clumsy, and his palms were at the front of Phil’s pajama shirt, fumbling at the buttons and attempting to tug it off of him. Phil’s self-control was worn so thin that he could barely focus on anything besides the Omega’s eager lips moving against his and the warm, sweet scent rising from between his thighs and the throbbing Phil felt between his own legs.

 

With a groan, whether of frustration or desire he could no longer fathom, he pulled back from Dan and shrugged his shirt off. They were both completely naked now. When he pulled the Omega toward him again, the skin of their chests, damp with sweat, pressed together. Phil thought he could almost feel Dan’s heartbeat thudding against his own.

 

He was hardly in control anymore. His rut and the smell of Omega had addled his brain, and there seemed to be a constant chant in the back of his brain: _knot, mate, bond, breed, knot, omega, knot_.

 

“Dan,” he breathed against the Omega’s lips. Before he quite knew what he was doing, he had taken hold of Dan and pushed him down onto the sheets again, straddling him and trailing kisses all up and down his face and neck. Dan was whining and whimpering and leaving sloppy kisses along Phil’s cheeks in his own turn. Phil’s hips were moving of their own accord, rutting up against Dan’s so that their cocks rubbed together in a way that sent ripples of pleasure coursing through his abdomen.

 

But still it wasn’t enough.

 

“Want your knot,” Dan was rasping into his ear. “Wanna be your Omega.”

 

“You are,” Phil groaned in return. “I’m your Alpha, and you’re my Omega. You’re mine. All mine.” He hardly knew what he was saying. The words were tumbling out of him, straight from his lower brain and into the air around them.

 

“You’re my Alpha. I’m yours,” Dan repeated, pressing his lips into Phil’s neck. Phil discovered that his own teeth were bared and poised above the bonding gland at the joining of Dan’s neck and shoulder. In a moment of clarity, he managed to pull back just before biting. No. No, it wasn’t the right time. He needed to find a way to end this, now.

 

“Turn over,” he ordered Dan, barely aware that he was using his Alpha voice. The Omega obeyed at once, rolling over onto his stomach again and turning just enough to watch as Phil crouched over his back.

 

“Knot me, Alpha. Please,” the Omega whispered. Some of his giddiness had passed, and the urgency in his voice had taken on a different tone. Maybe he too realized that Phil just needed to end this as soon as possible.

 

“Shhh,” Phil whispered, bending forward to place a kiss against the soft fuzz at the back of Dan’s neck. He didn’t dare get any closer to his throat than that. He pulled away and then placed a hand against either one of Dan’s hips, gripping them gently, but firmly. He could see that the Omega was still leaking slick all down his thighs. “Can you cross your knees a little bit for me?”

 

Dan was still looking back at him, and his forehead wrinkled up at Phil’s request, but he still did as he was asked.

 

“Thank you,” Phil rasped out, bending forward to press another kiss to Dan’s shoulder. His knees were shaking from want and exhaustion. He pulled Dan’s hips up off the bed until they were at the right angle. Then he let go of them and wedged one hand into the tight space between his thighs, stroking slowly over his entrance. Dan gasped and then let out a long, low moan at the contact. He spread the Omega’s slick across his swollen hole and the skin around it until the whole area was coated with a thick layer of moisture.

 

He set his clean palm down on the duvet, propping himself up on one shaky arm, and then he raised the other palm to his cock, coating it with the remnants of the Omega’s slick that clung to it. The quick, clumsy movements of his own slick-coated hand were almost enough to send him over the edge again, but he stopped, took a deep breath, and managed to hold out.

 

Then he placed his other hand on the duvet on Dan’s other side, positioning himself just below the Omega’s buttocks.

 

“Thank you, Dan,” he whispered one more time, leaning forward so that his lips were right next to the other’s ear. “Thank you, my beautiful Omega.”

 

Dan whined deep in the back of his throat and closed his eyes, and then Phil plunged his cock down into the tiny triangle of space between Dan’s buttocks and his crossed thighs. The space was tight and hot and slippery with the Omega’s slick, and it felt so good he couldn’t imagine that the real thing could be any better.

 

Dan had opened his eyes again and was staring up at Phil with an expression he didn’t have the mental capacity to decipher right now. The Alpha started thrusting between his Omega’s thighs, lost in the blissful tightness and heat and the scent of aroused Omega. _Knot, breed, bite!_ his brain was screaming at him. Already he was reaching his peak again. He leaned over Dan, running his nose against the beautiful scent of his neck. The Omega moaned at the sensation, and it was that sound that sent him over the edge, his cock slipping in and out of the tight crevice between Dan’s thighs before thrusting in for one final, savage plunge, and then he felt his knot thicken, his body tricked at last into thinking that he was claiming the Omega, and because he no longer had the strength to fight the urge to bite, he moved his lips just a few inches further down Dan’s shoulder and bit down into the soft flesh there. 

 

He heard the Omega gasp in pain, and his heart clenched with a responding pain. But he was still coming, his body pumping cum down between the Omega’s thighs in its futile effort to breed him. The sheets would probably be ruined, but he could worry about that in the morning. Dan started to quiver and pant beneath him, and he realized after a moment that the Omega was coming too. Did it really feel that good, he wondered, even without Phil’s knot inside him? He released Dan’s shoulder from between his teeth and pulled back, licking and kissing at the slightly-bloodied bite mark to soothe it. His hips jerked a couple more times, and then at last he was finished coming, and he collapsed on top of the Omega, his knot still wedged firmly into the space between his thighs.

 

As the hormones of his rut receded, Phil’s body at last began to relax. He started drifting off back into sleep again, his nostrils filled with the scent of contented Omega.

 

Dan, for his part, could sense that the Alpha’s rut was ending. His Alpha smelled calm and sated and happy, and that made Dan happy. The bite on his shoulder stung a bit, but he didn’t mind it. One day, he knew, Phil would leave a proper bite mark, one that would stay forever and let all the world know that Dan was a claimed Omega. He thought of this one as a preview of that. He was actually marveling a little at the Alpha’s self-control. How, through the haze of hormones from his rut, had he managed to keep it together enough not to bite Dan’s bonding gland? Dan was even more impressed, and grateful, that the Alpha had come up with such an ingenious solution to their predicament, managing to end his rut without knotting the Omega.

 

“Thank you, Alpha Phil,” he murmured, his lips only managing to open slightly as the side of his face was still pressed firmly against the sheets. He knew he ought to find the position uncomfortable, but his Alpha’s relaxed scent was making him feel drowsy and peaceful, and the feel of the Alpha’s still-thickened knot between his thighs was almost comforting. Phil hadn’t properly knotted him, yet in a way he still felt claimed. When his Alpha had needed him, he’d been there. He’d given the Alpha what he needed, and he didn’t think that anything could make him feel more like he belonged to Phil than that.

 

“Shhh,” Phil shushed him again. “We’ll talk in the morning.”

 

Dan could see that the moonlight had already begun to shift to the grey light of early dawn, but he didn’t bother to bring it up. He was as exhausted as the Alpha, so he closed his eyes and breathed deeply of Phil’s scent and let it carry him off into sweet dreams again.

 


	2. A Knotty Problem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After their night together during Phil's rut, Alpha!Phil and Omega!Dan must work out what this means for their relationship.

In the morning, Phil woke to find that his body was still pressing the Omega’s into the bed and they were both covered with sticky sweat. After a moment, he realized that he was hard again. His knot had subsided, though, and he guessed it was just his normal morning hardness. Still, with his cock wedged between his body and Dan’s buttocks, he knew it wouldn’t take much for him to start to get turned on again. 

 

It was strange, actually. He’d never wasted much time thinking about sex before. Any time he’d masturbated, it had been more out of physical need than out of any deeper desire. Now, though, everything had changed, and he was already thinking about how easy it would be to just start rubbing himself against Dan again, about how good it would feel and about how beautiful the Omega’s smooth back would look with his cum speckled across it. And he knew Dan wouldn’t object. He had already proven that he would submit to anything and everything the Alpha desired.

 

Just the knowledge of that sent a chill through Phil’s entire body and made his dick grow even harder.

 

Suppressing a sigh, he pushed himself up off of Dan’s body and rolled away to the other side of the bed. He would just sneak off to the bathroom and relieve himself before Dan could see…

 

The sudden rush of cool air against his back jerked Dan to consciousness. Before he even understood what had happened, he frowned. Why was he so cold all of a sudden?

 

But then he smelled it. He was practically drowning in the scent of Alpha and of sex. All at once, he came fully to his senses. He was lying on his belly with his cheek pushed against the sheets of Phil’s bed, and he could feel the patch of dampness on the cloth beneath him. Every single moment of last night came flooding back into his memories, and his whole body flushed with embarrassment.

 

He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, wishing he had a pillow to bury his face in. He didn’t know which was more shameful: the wanton way he’d begged his Master to knot him the night before or the fact that the memory of it was starting to turn him on again. He could feel that his dick was hard where it was pressing into the bed beneath him, but that often happened when he first woke in the morning.

 

There was a rustle on the other side of the bed, and his eyes popped open to focus on the sight of his Alpha slowly easing himself off the bed to stand beside it.

 

When Phil saw Dan’s eyes open and fix on him, his face immediately turned a shocking shade of red and his hands shot down to try to cover his dick, now standing fully erect and leaking against his abdomen. It was too late, though. He saw the Omega’s eyes widen, and then his cheeks flushed with a correspondingly bright color.

 

“I, uh,” Phil said, backing away slowly. “I’m just going to go have a quick shower.”

 

At the sight of the Alpha’s erection, Dan’s embarrassment only grew, but it wasn’t because he was ashamed of Phil’s naked body. It was because the sight of his cock was causing him to remember in vivid detail the way he had shamelessly taken the Alpha into his mouth and swallowed every last drop of his cum. He couldn’t believe he had actually done that. What must Phil think of him now?

 

Still, it was not his place to worry about himself when his Master needed taking care of.

 

Shoving aside his sudden attack of shame, Dan pushed himself up into a sitting position and made himself meet Phil’s eyes.

 

“I’ll come with you,” he said, his tone far more resolute than he really felt. He had always helped Phil in the bath, running the water and scrubbing his back for him and then helping him into his clothes afterward. On the rare occasions that Phil took showers instead, it was still the Omega’s duty to lay out a warm towel and a clean set of clothes for him. What he really wanted was a nice, long shower of his own, alone, where he could sort through everything that had happened and try to make sense of his feelings about it. However, no matter what he wanted, his Master’s needs came first.

 

“Oh, um,” Phil was saying, hands still hovering awkwardly over his crotch. He couldn’t help noticing that Dan was hard, too, and the sight of his Omega’s arousal was doing nothing to help him calm down. “You don’t have to. I can just… I mean, unless you want to. We could take a shower together…I guess.” 

 

It had struck him midway through his objection that Dan was just as sticky and sweaty as he was, possibly more so, and he must be wanting to wash as well. Back when they were still very young, when Dan had first come to live with him, they had often taken baths together. It had been more fun that way, and more expedient. Only within the past couple of years, as their bodies had begun to grow and change, had they become too shy of each other to share a bath anymore. But after everything they’d done last night, Phil figured there was little purpose in such shyness now. Plus, he had to admit that the idea of the Omega joining him in the shower, of the two of them standing close together to share the hot water and maybe rubbing each other down with soap, wasn’t an entirely unappetizing one.

 

Dan blinked in surprise at his Master’s suggestion. They hadn’t bathed together in years, not since Phil had started to grow noticeably taller than him and his shoulders had broadened and he’d grown hair in places where Dan had only recently started to. But they would need to leave for the Academy soon, and if they were both going to squeeze in showers before then, it made the most sense for them to go together.

 

He bit his lip and then nodded his agreement.

 

“As you wish, Alpha Phil,” he murmured.

 

Phil opened his mouth to explain that he hadn’t suggested it for his own benefit, but for Dan’s. However, that wasn’t entirely true, so instead he pressed his lips together and looked away, returning Dan’s nod. When he looked up again, Dan was crawling off the other side of the bed, also not meeting his eyes, and Phil couldn’t stop himself from staring at how his slender, tan back sloped down to his perfect, round backside as he hurried off to the bathroom.

 

He had to shake himself out of the rabbit trail his mind had started down. By the time he made his own appearance in the bathroom, Dan had already hung two towels on the warming rack and was crouched down next to the tub, adjusting the hot and cold taps to get the water temperature just right.

 

Phil was so grateful all at once that he had a private room. Out of all the children in the family, only he and his older Alpha sister had been given the privilege of having their own quarters. His Omega brother and sister shared, and his three Beta siblings all slept in the same large room with its own ensuite bathroom. Phil had never considered too carefully before why he and Sophie had rooms to themselves. It had always seemed natural that, as Alphas, they were given this privilege. He also knew that it probably was at least partially in recognition of their nature; Alphas weren’t known for being good at sharing anything. But as he watched Dan kneeling there beside the bathtub in the ensuite, it dawned on him that he and his sister in fact shared their rooms after all, with their respective Omega slaves. Perhaps that was no coincidence.

 

As Phil stood musing and discreetly trying to will his erection to subside, Dan stood and turned on the shower, testing the water with the palm of his hand before turning to Phil.

 

“I think it’s ready,” he said, giving Phil a deferential nod before stepping aside to let his Master get in first.

 

However, Phil was starting to imagine what the Omega might look like standing in the shower with the water droplets tracing paths all down his smooth skin.

 

“You first,” Phil gestured. The Omega frowned, looking like he wanted to object, but he did as he was told, stepping over the ledge of the tub and into the stream of water pouring from the shower head. He closed his eyes and breathed a soft sigh of relief as the water soaked his hair and ran across his skin, washing away the sweat and stickiness that had accumulated there.

 

Phil bit his lip and felt a twinge of pleasure low in his abdomen at the sight of the Omega’s blissful expression. It was a faint echo of the hormone-driven sensations that had coursed through him the night before, but in a way he thought he liked this better. Because what he was feeling right now, looking at Dan, watching the way his beautiful body moved as he raised his hands to run his fingers through his soaking wet hair, this wasn’t the result of some biological urge or some half-crazed desperation. This wasn’t his hormones driving his decisions but his own, rational mind. In the clear light of morning, he still wanted his Omega as much as ever. He could only hope that Dan felt the same way about him.

 

Phil walked over to the edge of the tub and climbed in behind his slave.

 

Dan opened his eyes and immediately stood aside to let the Alpha take his place under the water. Phil hurried to let the water cover him, reaching up to scrub his hair until it was thoroughly wet. He knew they didn’t have much time, and he wanted to make the most of the moment.

 

When he’d opened his eyes again, he saw Dan standing there, wet and shivering a little.

 

“Come here,” he said, opening his arms, and the Omega didn’t hesitate to step into them. He closed them around his back, running his hands over the Omega’s skin to warm it up again. “Would you mind if I, um, washed you?” he asked after a moment, looking down to see what the slave’s reaction would be.

 

Dan’s eyes widened for a moment, but then his gaze fell, and he replied,

 

“You can do whatever you like, Alpha Phil.”

 

Phil had to hold in an impatient huff of breath.

 

“I know I can, Omega Dan, but I’m asking you if you would mind,” he said.

 

The Omega’s soft eyes rose to his again for a moment, searching. He frowned as though he found Phil’s question confusing. At last he answered.

 

“I don’t think I would mind it. I want to get clean.”

 

Phil wasn’t sure that was really an answer, but he would take it nevertheless. He let go of the other boy and reached up to the tiled ledge where all of their bath items were stored. As he always did when Phil bathed, Dan had laid out a clean washcloth for him to use, so Phil took that and the bottle of body wash, and he squirted a little bit of the vanilla-scented gel onto the cloth. Dan stood, arms crossed over his chest to keep warm, and watched as Phil rubbed the soap into a lather.

 

“I’ll start with your back,” Phil said, so Dan turned around, arms still wrapped around himself, and presented Phil with his back.

 

Before last night, Phil had never really touched Dan. That is, when they were very young they’d occasionally held hands, and of course when Dan was washing his back for him or dressing him, he touched him, but Phil had never really sought out Dan’s touch or sought to touch him himself. Now, though, that it had begun to dawn on him how wonderful a thing it was to have the Omega’s exquisite body all to himself, he was filled with an overwhelming longing to touch every inch of it until he’d memorized it off by heart.

 

He raised the washcloth to Dan’s shoulder and began to slowly rub it across the skin and then down the length of his back and up again. He leant back a little as he worked, admiring the way the whitish suds slid down Dan’s brown skin. He noticed that the Omega’s shoulders, initially hunched up with cold, began to lower as he relaxed under Phil’s gentle, repetitive motions. When his hand began to make its way up to Dan’s other shoulder, though, the Alpha paused. He saw the teeth marks there, now turned a reddish-brown as they began to scab over and heal. He felt a pang of guilt that was confused by an accompanying rush of affection for the Omega who had uncomplainingly allowed himself to be marked like that.

 

Letting his hand fall, Phil leant forward again and pressed his lips softly against the marks on Dan’s skin.

 

“I’m sorry,” he murmured as he stood upright again.

 

He saw a faint shudder run through the Omega’s body as he moved away.

 

“You don’t need to apologize, Alpha,” the other boy responded in a low voice. Phil wished he could see what expression his face was making. All he could see was the bare nape of his neck and the dark strands of hair that clung to it. “I… I like being marked by you.”

 

Phil’s heart clenched hard in his chest at the Omega’s words before suddenly beginning to beat out of control. Raising his hand again, he smoothed the washcloth very, very gently across Dan’s injured shoulder before rubbing it back down again. This time, though, instead of stopping at Dan’s lower back, he let his hand continue further, running the soft cloth over the gentle curve of the Omega’s left buttock. He heard Dan’s sharp intake of breath at the sensation, and his cock, which had begun to soften at last, immediately began to harden again. He moved his hand across to the right side of Dan’s bottom, dragging the cloth up the skin achingly slowly, and the Omega let out a soft groan.

 

Phil couldn’t stand it any longer. He dropped the washcloth to the floor of the tub, where it landed on the ceramic with a squishy, sodden sound. Then he reached out and took Dan’s hand to pull him around to face him.

 

Dan had his lower lip caught between his teeth, and his eyes were half-shaded by lowered lids as he gazed up at the Alpha.

 

“You like the way I marked you?” he asked, squeezing Dan’s hand in his own.

 

“Yes, Alpha. I like being yours,” the slave murmured in response.

 

“Can I kiss you now?” Phil breathed, his own gaze fixed on the pink flesh of Dan’s lips.

 

“Yes, Alpha. Please,” Dan whispered.

 

Phil took a deep breath and then leaned in slowly. Last night when he’d kissed Dan for the first time it had been rough and hasty, urged on by the desperation of his rut. He wanted to take his time to really experience it now. The kiss he pressed against Dan’s lips was light, cautious. It lasted for just a few moments, and then Phil pulled away, heart hammering against his rib cage as he saw the Omega stood there, lashes resting against his cheeks and lips standing slightly open. He bent forward, kissing Dan’s lips again and then again and again. They felt so soft and perfect against his own.

 

His hands reached up to Dan’s hips, pulling him closer, and then a jolt of pleasure shot through Phil as his own erection pressed up against the Omega’s. The contact pulled a tiny whimper from the Omega. What a glorious surprise to discover that Dan was as aroused by this as he was.

 

The Alpha pulled back just enough to whisper, “Can I touch you? Do you mind?”

 

“Please,” Dan breathed again, moving his hips hesitantly forward to press their two cocks more firmly together.

 

Nothing today felt as intense or as urgent as it did yesterday, but it was good in a different way. He could focus on the sensation of the smooth, hot skin of Dan’s dick rubbing up against his and of the warm water rushing down between them, forming little pools and eddies in the places where their skin met.

 

He reached in between them and grasped both of their cocks in his fist, squeezing lightly and hearing his own involuntary groan blend with a soft exhalation from between Dan’s lips. He bent forward to push his lips against the Omega’s again as he slid his hand down to the bases of their cocks and then slowly back up to the tips. When their lips met, Dan opened his mouth to let Phil’s tongue dip inside. The Alpha was momentarily surprised to feel his Omega’s tongue reaching out to meet his, caressing it tentatively at first and then more boldly. He groaned again. His hand that had been gripping Dan’s hip slid around to his backside, cupping one of his buttocks gently for a moment before tracing its smooth curve with his palm.

 

The Omega pulled back for a moment, tilting his chin up so that he could meet Phil’s eyes. His cheeks were flushed pink, and Phil thought at first it was only the heat from the shower, until he heard the shyness in his tone.

 

“C-can I ask you something, Alpha?”

 

The hesitance in his expression was so adorable, Phil couldn’t help leaning in and kissing his slightly parted lips again.

 

“Anything,” he murmured against them before pulling away.

 

“Will you…” He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as Phil squeezed his fist down their cocks again. “Will you put your fingers inside me?” His voice was soft and breathless. He opened his eyes again, staring straight up into Phil’s. “I want to feel you inside of me, Alpha.”

 

Phil almost came just at the thought of it. As it was, he muttered a soft “fuck” under his breath before nodding his agreement and giving the Omega’s ass cheek a firmer squeeze.

 

“Nnnnnh,” Dan moaned in response, and Phil had to still the hand on their cocks before it became too much for him to withstand.

 

Instead he concentrated on running his fingers gently over the curves of the Omega’s behind before sliding them down between his thighs and then up again, gently parting his cheeks to allow him access to his entrance. When he reached the tightly-furled ridges of skin, though, he paused, surprised. The Omega was still wet with slick. He’d thought that the Omega’s body would stop producing slick once the Alpha’s rut had ended, and any remnants of last night’s wetness should have already been washed away by the shower. Instead, though, his entrance was slippery and slightly swollen, and when Phil pressed the pad of his index finger against the ring of muscle, it slipped inside easily.

 

The Omega let out a loud, high-pitched moan as Phil’s finger slid inside him, and his forehead fell against Phil’s shoulder.

 

“More,” he whispered against his Master’s skin, moving his feet a little further apart to allow Phil better access. “More, Alpha. Please.”

 

Phil swallowed hard and did his best to ignore the hot points of pleasure blossoming in his lower abdomen. He could get off later, once he’d taken care of his Omega.

 

He slid his index finger in up to the knuckle, pulling it in and out of the Omega’s slippery hole with ease. So he pressed his middle finger against his entrance for a moment, testing Dan’s reaction. When he merely moaned “More” again in a ragged voice, he slid the second finger in along with the first and was rewarded with a low, keening whine from deep inside the Omega’s throat.

 

He pushed the two fingers in slowly, oh so slowly, listening to the ragged moans the movement pulled from Dan’s throat and marveling at the way the Omega’s body was gradually opening to him. He pushed in all the way down to the base of the two fingers and then slid them out, pushing in and out again with increasing speed.

 

“More,” Dan whined, pressing his lips against the skin of Phil’s chest in a gesture almost of supplication. “I want to feel more of you.”

 

So Phil pressed his third finger against Dan’s rim and felt it slip in beside the other two. The Omega’s slick was dripping out again now. Phil could feel it coating his fingers and accumulating on the skin of his buttocks and thighs. His tight hole was relaxed and open now, and Phil couldn’t help wondering if it was stretched enough to take his cock. He was tempted just to turn Dan gently around and slip in just the tip, just to try it, just to see how it would feel inside. He didn’t think the Omega would object. On the contrary, he was already begging Phil for more, and Phil couldn’t help marveling at how wide his tiny hole was able to stretch. Of course he’d known, theoretically, that Omegas’ bodies could open up enough to accommodate an Alpha’s thick cock, but feeling it in action, he couldn’t help but think that what Dan’s body was capable of was far more impressive than Phil’s dick simply being big.

 

Dan was moaning into his chest, rolling his forehead from side to side against the skin of his shoulder.

 

“You feel so good inside me, Alpha,” he muttered, pressing kiss after kiss against Phil’s skin. “You feel so good. I’m gonna cum, Alpha. I’m gonna cum on your fingers.”

 

Phil had long ago forgotten about the hand around their cocks. He remembered it now and tightened his grip on them again as he began running his palm up and down their smooth lengths. The Omega started thrusting forward, his dick squeezing in and out between Phil’s palm and his cock.

 

“I wanna watch you come,” Phil murmured into the Omega’s ear as he shoved his fingers in as deep as they would go and pulled them out and pushed them back in again. “You’re so wet for me, Dan. You look so pretty like this. Come for me, Omega.”

 

“I wanna cum for you, Alpha. Feels so good. You feel so good.” Dan’s words were all slurred together, and his hips were jerking forward into Phil’s grip and then backward onto his fingers, and he was whining in the back of his throat, and then all of a sudden Phil felt the muscles of his hole clenching around his fingers and his hips were jerking forward uncontrollably and there was hot sticky liquid spilling onto Phil’s dick and hot, sticky liquid running down the fingers of both hands.

 

“Phil, Phil,” the Omega was sighing against his skin, and he almost missed the fact that he’d forgotten to use the Alpha’s title, but he didn't quite. Never in all their years together had the Omega forgotten to call him “Alpha” or “Alpha Phil” or “Master.” Never once had he called him just “Phil,” but he’d been so lost in the sensation of his Alpha’s fingers deep inside him and the fact that Phil was making him come, that for just a moment the only thought he’d been able to form was how much he loved Phil, how wonderful Phil was, how he wanted to be with Phil and only Phil for the rest of his life.

 

Phil couldn’t have said why, but hearing his slave call his name like that, just his name, as he reached his climax and came all over his Alpha, sent him over the edge as well, and just as the Omega began to come down from his high, Phil started coming, his own cum spilling hot over his hand and Dan’s cock and his stomach.

 

“Dan,” he groaned into the other’s ear as the golden waves of pleasure poured through him and then, just as quickly as they’d come, began to ebb away.

 

They stood, leaning against one another for a while, panting and trying to catch their breath. And it seemed, for that unmeasured length of time, that the two of them were in a private world all their own, one where it didn’t matter than one of them was the master and the other a slave, or that one was Alpha and the other Omega. All that mattered was the other person and the way their two bodies felt pressed together, and the sound of their breathing and the warm glow spilling out from both of their chests.

 

Then in the bedroom next door there came a loud, clattering sound, like a book or a heavy plate being dropped onto a table, and they both started. The house slaves must be bringing up Phil’s breakfast already. With a sigh, Phil slipped his fingers from inside of the Omega. He was about to rinse them off in the stream of water from the shower, but then, curious, he instead raised them to his lips and licked the tip of one finger. It was a rich, sweet flavor, not unlike the Omega’s scent, but muskier and bolder. He licked the rest of the fingers clean, thinking it might be one of his new favorite flavors.

 

The Omega was stepping back from him, head hung down in a submissive posture.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said in a small voice. “I said something I shouldn’t have. Please forgive me, Alpha.”

 

Phil blinked down at him, confused at first about what he meant. Then he remembered the way the Omega had whispered his name as he came, and a little shiver of pleasure rushed through him.

 

“There’s nothing to apologize for, Omega… Dan, I mean. You can call me by my name. I kind of like it, actually.”

 

The Omega’s eyes rose slowly to his Alpha’s, searching them for any sign of anger or insincerity. All he found in them was a warm smile. He smiled back.

 

“Phil,” he whispered, eyes going wide as he said it as though he were shocked by his own temerity.

 

The Alpha reached down and cupped the other boy’s cheeks between his palms, raising his face to press a kiss against his lips. He ran his tongue over Dan’s, begging his lips to part for him. When they did, he pushed his tongue inside, rubbing it heatedly against Dan’s, wanting him to taste the flavor of his own slick there. The Omega whimpered and ran his tongue over the Alpha’s. Was that really what he tasted like? It tasted good on his Alpha’s tongue.

 

There was another sound next door, possibly the click of a door closing, and they broke apart at last.

 

“We’re going to be late if we don’t hurry,” Dan mumbled, laying his head against Phil’s shoulder again. “I’m not ready to go yet, though.”

 

“Me neither,” Phil replied, wrapping his arms around the Omega’s back and pulling him close. It was strange when he thought about it. He knew Dan was going to be with him the whole day, never out of his sight for more than a few minutes, yet somehow, today, even that didn’t seem like enough. He wanted to keep Dan here, held against his body for the rest of the day, here safe in his room where it was just the two of them and he could touch and kiss him as often as he liked. He almost felt jealous when he thought of leaving and going to the Academy where there were other Alphas who could look at Dan and smell his delicious scent. What a weird thing to feel, he thought to himself. He’d never felt that way about his slave before.

 

Nevertheless, they both knew they had to go. Even for Alphas and Omegas there was more to life than sex. Eventually, Phil let go of the other boy and picked up his washcloth again and, despite Dan’s protests that he was capable of washing himself, finished his task of cleaning every inch of him he could reach. Once he was finished, the Omega grabbed the washcloth from his hand, poured more shower gel onto it, and pointedly washed the Alpha just as thoroughly. Phil found it strangely arousing to see his Omega taking charge like that and forcing him to submit to his wishes. It was an intriguing reversal of roles.

 

At last, they turned off the water, and Dan grabbed them both fresh, warm towels from the warming rack, which Phil was very glad of. His rooms were well-heated, but it was still London in February, and even here there was a slight chill in the air.

 

When Dan had slid Phil’s school blazer on for him and tied his school tie and then made all the small adjustments necessary for him to look absolutely flawless, they returned to the bedroom next door to find that the house slaves had laid out both of their breakfasts on the table there.

 

This was their first clue that perhaps their activities of last night hadn’t gone completely unnoticed by the other residents of the house. Usually, Dan was up at least an hour before Phil and would go down to the kitchens to have his breakfast with the other slaves. This left him time to dress and prepare for the day so that once Phil woke, he would be able to devote his entire attention to getting his Master ready. On the rare occasions that Dan didn’t make it downstairs in time for breakfast, it usually meant that he was sick in bed. In such cases, one of the house slaves would come up to check on him and bring him his breakfast and fetch the doctor. Dan realized, as he saw the table for two set out for them there, that someone must have come to check on him long before either of them woke this morning. 

 

They exchanged a wordless glance before both shaking their hands. No time to discuss it now. Phil sat down and started shoveling oatmeal into his mouth while Dan hurried over to his wardrobe and started pulling on his own uniform. Though he was not a student of the Academy, he and the other Omega companions who attended each day wore their own special uniforms. This was mostly for the benefit of the Beta students and staff, who sometimes couldn’t immediately distinguish a person’s designation just from their scent. There were no Omega students at the Academy, so none of the Alphas or Omegas had any trouble knowing at once who was and wasn’t a student.

 

Once dressed, Dan hurried over to the table and began scarfing down his own breakfast. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been this hungry, but he chalked it up to the unusual amount of energy he had expended over the last few hours. Phil looked to be just as hungry and had almost finished his entire meal in just the time it took Dan to get dressed.

 

By the time they made it out the front door, they were most definitely running late. They didn’t see anyone else around, probably because all the others had already left the house for the day or were busying themselves with chores. While Phil’s family owned several cars and employed a team of drivers who could take them anywhere they wanted, Phil and Dan usually walked to the Academy in the mornings. It was only about fifteen minutes on foot, and Phil’s Alpha Father said it wasn’t worth calling out a car for. He’d also told Phil he thought it would be character-building for him to have to walk. Most mornings, Phil would have agreed, but today he couldn’t help wishing he could order a car to get them there on time.

 

As a slave, custom dictated that Dan walk two steps behind his Master, and normally they followed this protocol, with Phil walking leisurely ahead and Dan trailing behind with his book bag slung over his shoulders. Today, though, as Dan started to hang back to allow Phil to pull ahead, Phil reached back and grabbed his hand, tugging him up alongside him. Not only were they in a rush, but for some reason Phil couldn’t bear the thought of the Omega being out of his sight for a full fifteen minutes.

 

When they at last reached the imposing front steps of the Academy, Phil finally dropped Dan’s hand, and they both dashed up the marble stairs and through the massive front doors. They could hear the chimes ringing out the start of the first lecture, and as they rounded the corner of the hallway that held Phil’s classroom, the Alpha braced himself for a strong scolding — and possibly detention — from the tutor.

 

Instead, when the two of them pushed open the door as quietly as they could and started sneaking to their respective seats, the tutor merely glanced their way, offered Phil a short nod, and then continued with what he’d been saying. The other Alphas looked up from their notebooks, gazing first at Phil and then at his Omega with keen curiosity and then exchanging significant glances with one another. Phil could feel his cheeks turning red. How did everyone already seem to know? They hadn’t even bonded, so it wasn’t like they could smell any difference in them… Well, other than the fact that the Alpha had scented his slave, but that sort of thing happened all the time around here.

 

Dan, for his part, slunk to the back of the class where the other Omegas, six in all, sat on their bench, hands folded primly or, as a few like Dan did, taking discreet notes for the sake of their Masters. None of the Omegas reacted to Dan’s late appearance, but he could tell by the tense set of their shoulders and the quick glances darted from the corners of their eyes that they knew something had happened. 

 

Dan guessed that it was probably his scent. They’d all been attending the Academy together since they were children, so the other Omegas knew very well that Dan’s Alpha had never scented him before. They’d also all learned that once an Alpha starting scenting an Omega, it probably wouldn’t be long before the two were bonded. Outside of their small group, this wouldn’t necessarily be true. For most of the world, it was common for an Omega to be scented by and maybe even be knotted by a variety of Alphas before settling down and bonding with one. However, for all of the Omegas Dan knew at the Academy, their future had been decided long ago.

 

He took his usual seat among the others, and they all sat in their customary silence for about five minutes while the Alphas settled back into the lecture. Once it was clear no one was paying the Omegas any attention, though, Dan caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and saw that the girl next to him, an Omega named Laurel, had turned her right hand palm up on her thigh and stuck her thumb out. It was a sign, part of the little language of signs the Omegas of the Academy had created amongst themselves so that they could carry on discreet conversations in the middle of lectures. This one was a general question, which in this case Dan interpreted as a “What’s going on?” or a “What happened?”

 

So he rested his own right hand on his thigh, raised his index finger, pushed it forward and then pulled it back in, the sign for “rut.” A series of almost inaudible intakes of breath passed along the row of Omegas as Dan’s answer was shared. They were shocked, probably because Dan was still un-bonded. In their experience, their Alpha masters showed very little restraint when it came to bonding their Omegas.

 

After the Omegas’ ruffled feathers had had a chance to settle again, the next question came. Laurel crossed her fingers, a sign meaning “knot” or “knotting,” and then raised her palm in the questioning gesture again. Dan quickly responded by pinching together the index finger and thumb of his left hand to indicate “no.” He felt no shyness or hesitancy in discussing the details of his sex life with his friends at the Academy. It was a topic that came up regularly among any group of Omegas, not because they all had salacious minds, but more out of necessity. Most Omegas’ lives were entirely defined by the sexual desires of Alphas, and sharing information about such things with one another was more a matter of self-preservation than of passing on juicy gossip.

 

There was silence amongst the Omegas at Dan’s answer this time. They didn’t know what to make of an Alpha in rut who didn’t at least knot his Omega slave. Finally Laurel raised her palm again, but this time she folded her thumb against the side of her hand — “Why?”

 

Dan thought about how to answer. Their sign language, while useful, was limited, and this question had a complicated answer. He wasn’t even sure he entirely understood the answer himself. While it was technically illegal to knot an Omega before their first heat or to mate with an Alpha before their first rut, such laws rarely applied to people like the elite Alphas and Betas who were students of the Academy. (For Betas, who reached sexual maturity more gradually than Alphas or Omegas, the law was based on age rather than any physical changes, making it illegal to mate with a Beta younger than 16). Had Phil only been following the law then? But even if he had broken it, there would have been no consequences for him. Even in the unlikely event that someone had reported him for it, his Alpha Father would have quickly seen to it that the case disappeared without any notice being taken of it.

 

Finally, Dan answered Laurel’s question. He made the sign for “no” again and then the sign for “heat,” which was actually the same as the one for “rut,” just on the left hand instead.

 

They fell silent again after that, and there was very little conversation throughout the rest of the first lecture. Dan knew, though, that they would have more questions later. This was born out when, during Games, while the Alphas were out of doors playing a miserable-looking round of rugby, the other Omegas huddled around Dan on the sidelines and whispered questions to him. This was the only point during the day when they had a chance to all speak together out loud, as the Alphas and their instructors were all busy with whatever game had been planned for the day. Theoretically, there was no reason for the Omegas to be here, but the Alphas preferred that their Omegas stay in sight as often as possible.

 

“So is your Alpha going to bond with you when you do get your heat?” a boy named Gerald asked him.

 

Dan shrugged. He and Phil hadn’t really discussed it yet.

 

“But how did he even do it?” demanded an Omega named Carol, one of only two among them who had already bonded. “My Alpha can barely string a full sentence together when she’s in rut.”

 

“He, um, he bit my shoulder instead,” Dan murmured. The skin of his left shoulder was still a little tender where it rubbed against his shirt.

 

“Yeah, but how did he even end his rut without knotting you?” asked Laurel. “I mean, he just came to lectures like nothing had even happened, so how…” She trailed off, looking a question at him.

 

Dan frowned.

 

“He, like, did it in between my legs instead?” he tried to explain. They all looked at him as though they didn’t quite believe him. If he’d just heard someone explain instead of experiencing it for himself, he probably would have been skeptical, too. “I don’t know how it worked. It just did,” he added.

 

“Maybe he’s in love with you.” That was Perry, the other Omega who had already bonded. All eyes turned to his serious, dark face. “If an Alpha and Omega have strong feelings for each other, sometimes their bodies act like they’re bonded even before they are. You know, forming a strong bond is as much about having a good connection with the other person as it is about anything physical.”

 

Perry had a very kind Alpha named Emerson, and many of the other Omegas were a little envious of the close relationship they seemed to have. Dan wasn’t, though. In his opinion, there was no better Alpha than Phil. As he thought this, his heart began to beat a little harder in his chest. Maybe Perry was on to something.

 

All of the Omegas were staring at Dan again now, and he felt his cheeks heating up. He could talk about sex with them as casually and openly as he might talk about the weather, but when it came to something as private as his feelings for his Alpha… He just shrugged again and dropped his gaze to his toes. A few nervous giggles rose from the circle of Omegas, and he could feel the glances they were exchanging with each other. Love was a difficult topic for all of them. Omegas in their position had to learn to put ideas of romance and love far from their minds. Dan told himself to do just that, but ended up thinking about it for the rest of the day anyway.

 

Phil’s schoolmates were far more oblique when it came to asking him about what had happened. They too had to wait until they were alone, just the Alpha students with no Omegas or staff around. Their opportunity came after Games, when they were all in the locker room showering and changing after their rugby match. There were fourteen of them in the same year as Phil, and they had all studied together at the Academy since they were six years of age. They and the other students at the school were all children of some of the nation’s wealthiest and most powerful families, most of them noble. Some day they would all most likely be colleagues in the Senate or rivals in business, but for now they were classmates.

 

“You were late today,” a girl named Sristi commented to Phil as they rinsed off side by side in the communal showers. “You and your Omega.”

 

“Yeah, the tutor announced before lectures began that you were going to be late,” the Alpha named Emerson, who was on Sristi’s other side, added in.

 

“Oh, huh,” Phil said. If the tutor had known he was going to be late, then someone from his family must have called ahead… He gulped, feeling nervous all of a sudden. Why would they have done that? “It was just my rut,” he finished, shrugging and getting back to shampooing the mud out of his hair.

 

“Congratulations!” called an Alpha named Patrick from his other side. “Can’t wait for the party!”

 

Among Patrician families, it was common for parents to throw parties to celebrate their Alpha children’s coming of age. Phil had been so preoccupied remembering everything that had happened between him and Dan over the past day that he hadn’t even stopped to consider that.

 

“Oh, right. I haven’t had a chance to talk to him about it yet, but I’m sure you’ll all be invited.”

 

There was a pause, and he knew the others were all waiting for him to brag about knotting his Omega. Two of the other Alphas in his year had already bonded with their Omega slaves, and a third, whose family hadn’t bought her a slave, had gone through her rut with help from an Omega courtesan her family had hired for her. None of them had had any qualms about telling the other Alphas all the details. When Alphas talked about sex, especially Alphas like Phil and his friends, there was almost always a certain amount of posturing involved, boasts about how loudly they’d made their Omegas moan or how many times they’d made their Omegas come. Phil tried to imagine telling them about having sex with Dan and felt his stomach clench up. It seemed way too personal a thing to share with anyone else.

 

“Do you think you’ll bond with your Omega soon?” Sristi finally asked as she turned off her shower head and stepped out to grab a towel.

 

Phil just shrugged and turned off his own shower.

 

“After he has his first heat, yeah,” he replied and then stepped out and started drying off too.

 

He heard a few laughs from the other Alphas.

 

“Come on,” Sristi scoffed beside him. “No one’s going to arrest you for knotting your Omega a little young.”

 

“What difference will a few months make anyway?” Emerson chimed in, stepping out and joining them. “Your Omega’s about the right age. I’m sure it’ll happen any time now. Why bother waiting?”

 

To Phil, the difference was that before last night he’d had very little interest in having sex, and he was pretty sure the same was true for Dan. That’s how it always was for Alphas before their first rut or Omegas before their first heat. At the least, he and Dan had never discussed the topic before and, while the Omega had seemed willing enough last night, he couldn’t be sure that wasn’t just because he saw it as his duty. Or maybe it had only been the effects of Phil’s pheromones. Either way, he couldn’t be sure it was what Dan really wanted, and now that he was taking the time to think through it, he saw that that’s what it had really come down to for him: did the Omega really want Phil to knot him? Or, to put it in even simpler terms, did Dan really want Phil?

 

The other Alphas were all nodding along with what Emerson had said, so Phil just shrugged, trying his best not to blush.

 

“I have to live with my Omega for the rest of our lives. I don’t want him to hate me.”

 

The other Alphas were shaking their heads now.

 

“Look, mate, once you bond with him, it will be impossible for him to hate you,” Patrick was saying, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “If you want to do it, just do it. He’s only an Omega, and a slave besides.”

 

But Phil just shrugged again and moved over to where his uniform lay. As he started pulling on his boxers, he called over his shoulder.

 

“He’s my Omega, and I’ll do with him what I like,” and that shut them up for good. If his time at the Academy had taught him nothing else, it had taught him that when arguing with other Alphas, it was important to assert your claim over any territory you considered exclusively yours. Often, the other Alphas would respect your claim, and the argument would be successfully diffused. If they didn’t, well then, the two of you had bigger problems than a simple disagreement.

 

After lectures had ended for the day, on their walk home, Dan fell into place behind his Alpha as he was accustomed to, and at first Phil was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice. But after a couple of minutes, a nagging worry began to creep into the back of his mind. He didn’t recognize what it was at first — he’d never felt this particular uneasiness before — but then it dawned on him that he was itching to turn and make sure his Omega was still there. When he did so, there was Dan, plodding along with his brow furrowed and his eyes staring at the pavement beneath his feet.

 

“You’re going to trip over something if you don’t watch where you’re going,” Phil scolded him, making Dan whip his head up as a blush spread out across his cheeks. It was rare that his Alpha told him off for anything, so when he did, he couldn’t help feeling that he’d really messed up. Seeing the expression on his Omega’s face, Phil bit his lip and then added, “I guess you have a lot on your mind. Here, come hold my hand again,” and he held out his hand for the slave to take hold of.

 

Dan’s blush deepened. Maybe Phil hadn’t noticed, but Dan had certainly seen all of the stares they’d gotten this morning as they dashed to the Academy with hands clasped together. Still, he couldn’t deny that he would feel better if he were touching the Alpha in some way. He reached out and took Phil’s hand, and once their palms were safely pressed together, he instantly felt more at ease.

 

They both stayed silent the rest of the walk home. Maybe they each felt they had too many things to say to the other to even know where to begin. Or maybe both felt that their joined hands said everything they needed to say.

 

As soon as they walked through their front door, one of the house slaves stepped forward, offered Phil a deferential nod, and said, “Your Alpha Father would like to see you in his study, Alpha Phil.”

 

They let go of each other’s hand at once, and, after exchanging a glance with his Alpha, Dan hurried off toward the stairs. They could both guess why Alpha Lester wanted to see his son today.

 

Phil found his Alpha Father seated at his desk in his study, working on something on his computer. He looked up as soon as Phil walked through the door, took a large sniff and then frowned. After staring at Phil for a moment, he gestured for him to close the door.

 

“Come in and have a seat,” he told him once he’d pulled the door shut. When Phil had settled in one of the leather-covered chairs before his desk, he said, “The house slaves told me that you bonded with your Omega last night, but I see now that they were mistaken.”

 

“I had my rut last night, Sir,” Phil explained. Now that he thought of it, the house slaves who cleaned his room were Betas. While they could usually sense things as blatant as whether a person was Alpha or Omega or when someone was in rut or heat, their noses often weren’t sensitive enough to pick up more subtle things, like whether or not someone was bonded. He guessed that the house slaves had seen his ruined bed sheets and made assumptions. Unlike Dan, he didn’t know that someone had probably come in before they’d even woken and seen them together.

 

“And you knotted your Omega without bonding with him?” Father prompted, still frowning slightly.

 

“No, Sir,” Phil answered at once. “He hasn’t had his heat yet, and I didn’t think it would be right to knot him.”

 

Alpha Lester’s frown deepened, and he studied his Alpha son for a long time before making any response.

 

“You showed commendable self-restraint, Phil,” he said. Then his expression cleared at last, and he offered his son a smile. “We shall have a party this weekend, to celebrate your becoming a true Alpha!”

 

Phil’s own expression broke into a grin. He had pleased his Alpha Father. He had done well.

 

“Thank you, Father!”

 

“I’m very proud of you, son,” his Father said. “Now perhaps you’d better explain exactly what happened.”

 

Upstairs, Dan pushed open the door to his and Phil’s room to find that it was occupied. At the table where they’d eaten their breakfast this morning sat a tall, blonde-haired Omega leafing through a book. Dan knew it must be the Omega’s own book, as they would never have dared touch any of Alpha Phil’s belongings without permission.

 

“Will, what are you doing here?” Dan asked as he walked in and shrugged off Phil’s book bag next to his desk.

 

The Omega looked up from their reading, and much as Phil’s father had done, drew in a deep breath and then nodded. They set the book aside and then stood.

 

“The house slaves kept saying that you and Alpha Phil had bonded, but when I came up here just now, it didn’t smell right. I guess they were wrong.”

 

Not just any Omega would have felt free to walk into Alpha Phil’s room uninvited, but Will was the Omega slave of Phil’s older Alpha sister. They had known Phil for almost his entire life, and Phil often treated them like just another sibling. They were called Will because when they were born, their parents had thought they might be a boy, but it turned out they were not a boy or a girl, but just an Omega. They had liked the name Will, though, so that’s what everyone still called them.

 

“No, we didn’t bond,” Dan agreed, walking over to Will and putting his arms around them. He buried his face in the front of their jumper and drew in a deep breath of their calming scent, feeling their hands come up to pat him gently on the back. Dan, too, thought of Will as an older sibling, someone he could trust with anything, and he was so confused right now.

 

“But _something_ happened,” he heard Will say. “And I can tell that Alpha Phil scented you.”

 

Dan nodded, his face rubbing against the soft wool of the other Omega’s jumper.

 

“Do you want to tell me about it?” Will suggested. Dan nodded again.

 

So the two of them sat down together at the table, and Dan explained everything, from waking up to the scent of his Alpha’s rut to the conversation he’d had with the other Omegas at the Academy today. Will listened attentively, occasionally nodding their head or raising an eyebrow in surprise.

 

“Well,” they said, when Dan fell silent at last. “I think the only way you’ll know Alpha Phil’s true feelings is if you ask him. I suppose that idea scares you a bit, though.”

 

Dan just stared down at his fingers, which he’d looped all together in his lap. The idea of asking Alpha Phil Lester if he had feelings for his Omega slave was absolutely terrifying.

 

“Then let me ask you, do you know how you feel about him?” Will continued.

 

Dan shook his head. It wasn’t exactly true that he didn’t know. He had an inkling, a suspicion almost. But he didn’t know for sure.

 

“I see,” came Will’s low voice. “Perhaps you’d better think carefully about that, then, before you try to ask him what his feelings might be.”

 

“Yeah,” Dan agreed. “Yeah, I think you’re right.” He wanted to ask Will about their relationship with Alpha Sophie. Did she love them? Did they love her? It was a question that Dan had never even thought about before, much less dared to ask. It was silly, he told himself, to imagine noble-born Alphas falling in love with their Omega slaves. Pure, self-indulgent fantasy. Dan’s purpose was to bond with Phil and bear him many children, and that much was an honor in and of itself. Why did he need to go looking for anything more?

 

The door to the room was pushed open then, and Will rose from their chair as Phil entered the room.

 

“Alpha Phil!” they called, drawing the Alpha’s attention so that Dan would have time to compose himself. “From what I hear, it sounds like we’ll be having celebrations for your coming of age soon.”

 

“Yep!” Phil answered, face cracking into a grin. “Father says he’s planning a party for this weekend. How have you been, Will? I haven’t seen you in ages!”

 

While they all lived in the same household, Alpha Sophie’s quarters were in a wing of the house that was as far from Phil’s as possible. It wasn’t that he and Sophie didn’t like each other. It was just that, as with many young Alphas growing up in the same family, as they’d grown older and each begun to assert their own will, they’d clashed more and more often. Everyone was happier and calmer when the two young Alphas saw as little of each other as possible.

 

“I’m fine. Just a little busy!” Will smiled. “What with Sophie finishing her last year of university and looking to set up her own household…” They shrugged and laughed. “She has me constantly online looking for listings of flats and houses for her to check out. Says she doesn’t trust anyone else to know what she’s looking for.”

 

“That sounds like Sophie,” Phil agreed with a chuckle, but Will could see that the Alpha’s eyes had wandered over to where his own Omega stood quietly watching the exchange. They smiled to themself. They had their own opinions about the pair’s feelings toward one another.

 

“I’d actually better get back to it now. She’ll be home from her own lectures soon, and I don’t want her to find me empty-handed,” they said, walking toward the door. When they drew up beside Phil, though, they stopped and gave him a sudden hug. “Congratulations!” they said, squeezing him extra hard to let him know that they approved of his actions.

 

Phil’s face beamed. To many Alphas, an Omega slave like Will would have been simply another subordinate, but to Phil they were an important part of his family. They had been there for as long as he could remember, ready to comfort him when he was sad or offer a word of advice or encouragement. It meant a lot to him to know that they were proud of him.

 

When they had gone, Phil turned to find that Dan was busying himself over by his desk, setting out his books and other study materials. All day he’d been longing for this moment, when he and his Omega could be alone again, but now that the moment had arrived, he suddenly felt shy. Instead of joining Dan over at the desk, he made his way over to his wardrobe, where he began stripping off his school uniform and hanging it up neatly for the next day.

 

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” he heard Dan exclaim before rushing over and pulling his blazer and its hanger from his hands. “Here, let me.”

 

“It’s okay. I don’t mind doing things for myself every now and then,” Phil said, taking the blazer and hanger back. The Omega’s face fell. It had always been his duty to dress Phil, for the entire time he’d lived here. Did Phil want to change that now? “I mean, it’s just more efficient for us both to be getting things done at the same time… Don’t you think?” Phil tried to explain when he saw his Omega’s expression. It seemed that everything he did today was just making Dan sad. What was wrong with him? “Um, and I think if you start unbuttoning my trousers and taking off my shirt, I’m going to be too distracted to get any studying done,” he added.

 

He saw the Omega bite his lip, gaze dropping to the floor. He thought he’d upset him again, but then he noticed the corners of his mouth lifting up in an almost mischievous expression.

 

“As you wish, Alpha Phil,” he said and then turned and headed back over to Phil’s desk.

 

And just like that, Phil’s mind was wandering through a fantasy-land of various ways the Omega’s usual undressing of him could turn into something else. He could picture Dan unbuttoning his school trousers and then following them down to the floor, dropping to his knees and pulling out Phil’s cock… Or maybe he would take off Phil’s shirt and then his own and then Phil’s trousers and then his own, and he’d bend over the mattress and look back at the Alpha—

 

Needless to say, Phil had a very difficult time concentrating on his studying that evening. Dan was there, as he always was, bringing him a drink or a snack when he needed it, or telling him when it was time to stop and take a break. Except, for some reason, this evening he found Dan’s presence to be far more of a distraction than an aid. There was just something about him that made it almost impossible for Phil to focus on anything in the room other than the Omega.

 

By the time dinner had come and gone and Phil had finished his bath and allowed Dan to dress him in his pajamas, they were both too exhausted for any meaningful conversation. Dan thought that was perhaps for the best. All evening, he’d been turning over Will’s words in his head, thinking and thinking about what his true feelings for his Alpha might be, except that every time he started seriously thinking about Phil and about what kind of life he wanted to have with him, thoughts of last night in Phil’s bed or this morning in the shower kept intruding. He would catch himself tracing threads of thought that led to him picturing the Alpha pushing him up against the tiles of the shower or of him on Phil’s bed with his arse in the air and Phil’s face buried in it…

 

He shook himself out of it and reached under the bed to pull out his pallet from its usual storage spot…but it wasn’t there. For a moment, he thought that the house slaves had made a mistake while doing their cleaning, but then another explanation occurred to him: they had taken it away because they assumed that he would be sharing his Alpha’s bed now. After all, hadn’t Will said that the house slaves had thought he and Phil were bonded now?

 

He could hear Phil shifting around on his bed, trying to get comfortable. Should he tell him? Or maybe he could just wait until Phil fell asleep and then sneak downstairs to get it back…

 

“You’re really quiet down there, Dan. Are you okay?” came the Alpha’s voice. He should have known that Phil would guess something was wrong. They’d lived together and shared the same routine for so long now, it was always immediately obvious to the other when something was off.

 

“It’s nothing,” Dan replied. Nevertheless, a moment later, Phil’s face appeared at the edge of the bed, frowning down at him where he crouched on the carpet.

 

“Aren’t you going to sleep now?”

 

Dan bit his lips, not sure what to say.

  
“Is something wrong?” Phil asked, but without giving Dan time to answer, he added, “Tell me what’s wrong.”

 

Phil wasn’t using his Alpha voice, but the Omega still found it almost impossible to disobey a direct command from his Alpha.

 

“My pallet isn’t here,” he mumbled, keeping his head lowered so that he didn’t have to meet Phil’s eye.

 

There was a pause, presumably as Phil’s brain worked through what this meant. At last, the Alpha spoke again.

 

“Do you _want_ to sleep down there?”

 

He couldn’t lie. Not to his Alpha. He shook his head.

 

There was another pause.

 

“Come here, Dan,” he heard the Alpha say, his voice soft and low. His words made Dan’s heart start quivering in his chest. He stood and looked at Phil at last. The Alpha lay near the edge of his bed, lifting one corner of his duvet and holding his arms open. The sight made Dan so happy he almost wanted to cry. He climbed up and crawled into the inviting space, and he felt the covers fall over him as Phil’s arms wrapped around him. He cuddled close to the Alpha’s chest, and then a moment later, Phil’s fingers slipped under his chin and raised his face. He opened his eyes to find his Alpha frowning down at him.

 

“I really want to kiss you right now,” the Alpha said. “Do you want me to kiss you?”

 

And once again, Dan couldn’t lie. He nodded, lips trembling.

 

Phil’s fingers around his jaw pulled his face closer. He closed his eyes, and a moment later he felt Phil’s lips warm against his. The Alpha’s fingers slid up and into his hair, pulling him even deeper into the kiss. Their lips parted, and this time Dan boldly slipped his tongue into the Alpha’s mouth, running it across the insides of his lips and hearing him gasp before the sound was cut off by Dan pushing his tongue in further, searching out the Alpha’s tongue.

 

He felt Phil’s other hand slipping down to wrap itself around one of his buttocks, and the Omega let out an involuntary whine at the sensation. It felt so good. Every time Phil touched him it felt so good.

 

He slipped his own hand in between them, pulling up the hem of the Alpha’s pajama shirt and running his fingers across his stomach for a moment before pushing them under the elastic band of his boxers. He couldn’t say why, but he felt too impatient this evening to take time for any build up. He just wanted Phil, now, any way he could have him.

 

The Alpha let out a small sound of surprise in the back of his throat at the sudden intrusion of the Omega’s hand inside his pants. Dan was being so forward all of a sudden. He didn’t know why, but it was really turning him on.

 

Dan’s fingers trailed down through the coarse hair between the Alpha’s legs to find that he was already half-hard. He ran his fingers lightly down the Alpha’s length and smiled against his lips when he heard the groan this drew from the other.

 

They broke apart for a second, both raggedly drawing in a fresh breath of air, but Dan kept his hand right where it was, slowly stroking up and down the length of Phil’s cock and feeling it gradually grow firmer under his touch.

 

“Fuck that feels good, Dan,” the Alpha breathed, pushing his lips back into the other boy’s once more. He dropped both hands down to the Omega’s buttocks now, grasping them tight in his palms and pulling the Omega’s crotch against his. Dan responded by speeding up his stroking of the Alpha, gripping his hardened cock just loosely enough that his foreskin was slipping up and down along it with every stroke, adding to the flood of sensation Dan’s hand was making him feel.

 

He couldn’t stand it anymore. He needed to be touching the Omega’s skin. He slid his hands up Dan’s backside and then pushed them down inside his pajama bottoms, rubbing his palms down the smooth skin of his buttocks and squeezing them hard. The Omega whimpered at the feeling and jerked his hips forward a bit, just enough that Phil felt his small, hard dick press against his thigh for a moment. He slid one hand in toward the meeting of the Omega’s cheeks but then stopped, pulling away to stare at the other boy in shock.

 

“You’re soaking wet again,” he gasped. The room was mostly dark, but he could make out the faint glitter of moonlight in Dan’s dark eyes.

 

“It’s because I want you,” he whispered, moving close to Phil and pushing his face into his neck. Phil heard him drawing in a deep breath. “I wanna feel you inside me again, Alpha. Like this morning. I wanna come on your fingers again.”

 

The Omega’s voice was heavy. He sounded almost delirious, like he had last night after swallowing the Alpha’s cum. But all they’d done so far was kiss and touch. And the Omega shouldn’t be this wet, shouldn’t be leaking so much slick unless…

 

“Dan, I think you’re going into heat,” he said, hearing the incredulity in his own voice. What was the likelihood that the Omega’s first heat would occur so close to his own first rut? Almost zero, except… Phil knew that in bonded couples, after a few years it was common for the cycles of their ruts and heats to begin to match up. Apparently his and the Omega’s bodies had already begun to do the same.

 

Dan was still gazing up at him, and he could make out a lazy smile on the Omega’s lips.

 

“Good. Now you can knot me. And bond with me. And I’ll be your Omega for good.” He strained forward to press a kiss against Phil’s lips, giving his cock a few more firm strokes that sent shockwaves of pleasure rolling through his body. The intensity of the feeling was a warning sign. His own body was responding to Dan’s heat just as Dan’s had responded to his rut. Dan pulled back to look at him again. “Do you want me to be your Omega? Alpha, do you want me? Please say you want me.”

 

Phil’s heart was beating so hard in his chest. He hadn’t noticed it until now, maybe because he’d been with Dan all day and the change had come on so gradually, but it suddenly struck him how powerful the Omega’s scent had become. He could smell the heat on him now, only faintly. This was probably still only a pre-heat. It would likely be a good twelve hours or more until Dan’s full heat came on. But when it did, what would he do?

 

The Omega was mouthing kisses into his neck, making his unhurried way up to his jaw.

 

“Yes, I want you. Of course I want you,” Phil murmured, hardly able to think around the way that Dan’s soft lips were moving against the skin of his throat. “I want to knot you and bite you and bond you to me. I want to breed you and see your belly get round with my babies. I want to live with you every day, see you grow up and grow old and raise our children. I want you, Dan. I want everything about you.”

 

When the Omega’s lips found his, they tasted salty. Dan was crying, but he could smell the contentment radiating off of him. He wasn’t sad or hurt. He was happy. He was crying from pure joy.

 

Phil’s fingers continued where they’d left off a few minutes before, slipping in between Dan’s buttocks and parting them to find his slick-coated entrance. He ran his finger delicately across the swollen rim, reveling in the tiny whines and moans that poured from the Omega’s mouth in time with his movements.

 

“Do you want me to put my finger inside?” he whispered against Dan’s lips, knowing the answer already but wanting to hear the Omega beg for it.

 

“Please, Alpha. Please,” Dan moaned, the vibrations of his ragged voice tickling Phil’s lips.

 

“Anything you want, Omega,” he whispered back and easily slid his middle finger in up to the base. Dan was so hot and tight on the inside. He couldn’t help imagining what he would feel like around his cock. The Omega let out a loud whimper and rutted up against the Alpha’s thigh before pushing back onto his finger.

 

“I want more, Alpha. Give me more,” the Omega gasped into his mouth. So Phil slipped in his index finger too, loving the way the Omega’s hole stretched around him, enveloping his two fingers in its velvety warmth. The Omega groaned and began thrusting back more quickly. He seemed to remember that Phil’s cock was in his hand all of a sudden, and he started stroking it again, his movements quick and clumsy. “More,” he whispered, “more.”

 

Phil slid in his third finger, and he heard Dan gasp at the feeling, pressing hurried kisses all around his mouth as he pushed back onto Phil’s fingers and then moved his hips around in a circular motion so that the Alpha’s fingers pressed against every side of his inner walls. Phil began to thrust his fingers in and out, and they slid so easily through the Omega’s slicked up passage.

 

“More,” Dan whined, his voice almost a sob. “More.”

 

Phil was almost afraid to add any more. Dan was still a virgin after all, and his hole was so small and tight. But he also knew that during heat Omegas couldn’t be satisfied by anything smaller than an Alpha’s knot. Though Dan was still only in pre-heat, he guessed that he was still aching for something more than just three fingers. So he slid in a fourth finger, amazed at how wide the Omega’s opening was stretched now. He was shoving almost his entire hand inside with each thrust.

 

“Oh, Phil, yes. Just like that. Ahhhh, Phil,” the Omega groaned into his ear, squeezing his muscles a little so that they closed even tighter around Phil’s fingers. And then, incredibly, he rasped out, “More. Please, Alpha. More.”

 

Dan was still tugging at his cock, and the way he was moaning and clenching around his fingers, Phil didn’t think he was going to last much longer. He also kind of thought that the way the Omega smelled, half like Phil, half like heat, he might end up popping his knot. Dan was already begging for more. It wouldn’t take much time to pull both their pants off, to press himself against Dan’s entrance and slip himself inside— No, he couldn’t let his knot do his thinking for him.

 

“More,” Dan was begging in a broken voice, so with the next thrust of his fingers, he pushed his thumb inside too, and now his whole hand really was inside of the Omega’s body, slipping in and out along the thick layer of slick that coated his passage.

 

The Omega let out a moan so loud it was almost a scream, and then he was clenching around Phil’s fingers harder than ever and thrusting his cock against his thigh. Phil could feel the hot moisture at his crotch and knew that he was coming.

 

“You look so beautiful when you’re coming, Dan,” he whispered into the Omega’s ear, pressing a kiss against his throat and resisting a slight urge to bite. “You smell like heaven, Omega. Wanna knot you so bad right now.”

 

“Phil,” the Omega whispered in a dying voice, clenching and clenching as wave after wave of his orgasm rolled through him. He’d never come this hard or this long before, but he was lost in the feeling of Phil’s fist inside him and the thick scent of the Alpha filling his nostrils and the warm, slippery feel of the Alpha’s cock as he gripped it between his fingers. “I want you. I want you,” he whispered, feeling a final spurt of cum pump from the end of his cock and against Phil’s thigh, and then it was done, and he was collapsing against the bed, so exhausted he felt his consciousness slipping away even as his head met the pillow.

 

The Alpha didn’t notice at once that the Omega had passed out. Then he realized that Dan’s eyes were closed and his fingers had gone slack around the Alpha’s cock. He almost wanted to laugh. He’d been so close to coming himself, but it looked like that wouldn’t be happening just yet. He slipped his fingers out of the Omega’s pants and then used his clean hand to gently remove Dan’s hand from inside his own pajama bottoms. The Omega stirred slightly but didn’t wake.

 

He sneaked off to the bathroom where he finished himself off while licking the remnants of the Omega’s delicious slick from his fingers. He imagined what it might be like to taste it right from the source. He ended up coming so hard that his own vision went black for a moment. It almost scared him. He knew that having sex with an Omega in heat was supposed to be very intense, but this wasn’t even Dan’s full heat and he hadn’t even knotted him. What was it going to be like tomorrow? he wondered as he yanked off his soiled pajama bottoms and boxers and started cleaning himself up.

 

That was when he realized that he had decided: tomorrow he would go out and buy some condoms, ask his Alpha Father to phone the Academy that they wouldn’t be coming in that day, and when Dan’s heat started in for real, he was going to knot him. He’d said he wanted him, after all. He’d come willingly into Phil’s bed and asked him to kiss him, told him he wanted to feel him inside again. The Omega wanted him, and he wanted the Omega.

 

Dan’s eyes were still closed and his breathing had grown deep and even by the time Phil crawled back into bed beside him. He dropped a light kiss on the Omega’s forehead and then curled himself around him. He hoped Dan slept well tonight. He was going to need his energy tomorrow.

 


	3. In the Heat of the Moment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Omega!Dan is in heat, and Alpha!Phil has some decisions to make.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I lied, and here is Chapter 3 already, but it will probably be a while before Chapter 4 is ready. Thank you so much to everyone who is reading and for all your great comments!!!

The Alpha woke when the room was filled with the murky grey light of pre-dawn to his Omega whining and thrusting against his leg. The Omega was still asleep, but his cock was rock hard, and once the Alpha’s eyes had adjusted to the faint light, he could see that little tears of frustration had formed at the crinkled corners of the Omega’s eyes.

 

One of the Omega’s arms was half draped across the Alpha, so Phil took hold of the arm and pulled it more tightly around him and then drew the Omega into his own embrace, pressing his palms firmly against the other boy’s back. He heard him sigh as he snuggled his face into the Alpha’s chest. Phil slid his hands down to cup the Omega’s buttocks and pull his crotch in tighter against the Alpha’s body, and the Omega let out a small gasp, and then another, louder sigh as his cock pressed harder against the Alpha’s thigh.

 

“Shh, shh,” Phil whispered into the other boy’s ear, rubbing a soothing hand slowly up his back and then down it again.

 

He heard Dan mumble something in his sleep, which might have been the word “Alpha,” and then he snuggled deeper into Phil’s neck, drawing in long breaths of his Master’s scent.

 

He smelled even more strongly of heat now, and Phil was becoming increasingly aware of the thickening of his own cock between his legs. The Omega’s heat was coming on faster than he’d expected, probably sped by the nearness of his Alpha. Phil knew he needed to get away soon, before it became impossible to leave. This was no moment to test just how far his self-control went.

 

Dan was whining again now, his hips rocking backward and forward as he rubbed himself against the Alpha’s body. The Alpha pulled him closer, shushing him again and trying to decide what to do. He needed to go out to the shops and he needed to ask permission to stay home from the Academy. The first shouldn’t be an issue. He was pretty sure there was a 24-hour pharmacy nearby that would have the knotting condoms they needed. He could probably call for one of the house slaves and send them for it, but he was worried about holding it together while he waited for them to return. No, he would go himself. He would only be away from the Omega for twenty or thirty minutes at the most. It should be fine.

 

The more difficult problem would be locating his Alpha Father at this hour of the morning. He might be asleep in his own bed, or possibly in Omega Lester’s quarters. What was most likely was that he had spent the night in Phil’s Omega Mother’s rooms. His Father and Mother had lived together for more than forty years now, since they were small children. Phil had only shared his room with Dan for five years, and already he could understand how strange it must feel for his Alpha Father to spend a night away from his Mother. Phil hated the thought that someday he might not be able to share a room with Dan anymore.

 

But now was not the time for such thoughts. The Omega’s noises were growing increasingly loud and the movements of his hips more and more insistent. Phil couldn’t leave him like that, desperate and frustrated. It would feel too cruel.

 

He removed one hand from Dan’s back and slid it in between their bodies instead, all the way down the other boy’s stomach and in between his legs. He pressed his palm against the Omega’s erection, rubbing his hand slowly up and down along its short, hard length. He heard Dan’s breath hitch, pausing for a split second before he let out a low moan. The sound caused Phil’s own hips to give a small, involuntary jerk. Nothing turned him on like seeing and hearing his Omega aroused and desperate.

 

Dan started whining again, still mostly asleep, so Phil moved his hand up to the waistband of his pajamas and slipped it inside, pausing to rub a couple of slow circles against the warm skin of his abdomen before reaching down to grasp his cock.

 

“Don’t worry, Dan,” he whispered as he began to tug gently at the Omega’s swollen member. “I’m gonna make you feel so good.”

 

The Omega burrowed more closely against the Alpha’s chest, mumbling again, and this time Phil could distinctly make out the word, “Please.”

 

“Shh, shh,” he comforted him, moving his other hand back down to the Omega’s round buttocks and giving them each a squeeze in turn. This caused the Omega to start thrusting against his hand, and he could feel slippery pre-cum spreading across his palm each time the head of the Omega’s cock slid against it. The Omega’s scent was starting to get to him, filling his head with a warm, fuzzy glow.

 

Without stopping to consider what he was doing or why, he pulled his hand from inside Dan’s pants and brought it to his mouth, licking the sticky liquid from it. It had a very faint taste, a little like salt and a little like Dan. It was enough, though. He wanted to taste more.

 

“Please, don’t stop,” the Omega was gasping out. He was waking up now, pulled from sleep by his own desperation. “Touch me again, Alpha, please.”

 

“Shh, I’ve got you,” the Alpha whispered into his ear and pulled the other boy’s face up for a brief, intense kiss. Then he tore his lips away from the Omega’s, leaving him gasping for breath, before scooting down beneath the duvet until his face was right in front of the Omega’s crotch. He pushed his face against the front of the other boy’s pajama bottoms, reveling in the ripe scent of his arousal and the hardness of his cock pressing against his cheek.

 

The Omega whimpered softly and squirmed a little, so Phil reached his hands up and gripped his hips, holding him in place. When the Omega’s movements had stilled, he hooked his fingers inside the elastic of his boxer briefs and pulled them and his pajama bottoms down to the Omega’s knees. The sweet scent of slick suddenly filled the narrow space beneath the duvet, and Phil’s mind began to grow even fuzzier. He gripped the backs of the Omega’s thighs hard in his fingers, rubbing them a bit against the slippery slick there, and then he took the leaking head of the Omega’s cock between his lips, pressing the flat of his tongue against the opening to gather the salty pre-cum seeping from it.

 

Somewhere up above him he heard Dan gasp, and then he felt fingers slipping into his hair and running lightly down to the back of his neck. The soft touch raised goosebumps all across his skin, and he sucked the Omega’s cock deeper into his mouth, moaning appreciatively at the way its short, thick length filled him up. It seemed to fit his mouth perfectly.

 

“Shit,” he heard the Omega mutter, and he grinned around his mouthful of cock. He’d only heard Dan curse on a few occasions before. Omegas were usually discouraged from using coarse language, as it wasn’t considered proper Omega behavior. 

 

He pulled back, releasing the seal of his lips on the Omega’s dick so that he could mouth gently at the head. Then he placed his lips against one side and sucked a little of his foreskin into his mouth, working the sensitive skin gently between his lips. The hands at the back of his neck tightened their grip, and he could hear tiny whines and moans that were slightly muffled by the duvet over his head. He moved his lips slowly and carefully around the circumference of the Omega’s cock, kneading his skin between his lips all the while. When he at last released it, he placed his lips against the head and sucked it in again, at the same time running the fingers of one hand up the back of his thigh and in between his buttocks until they grazed against the Omega’s throbbing entrance.

 

“Ahn, Phil, I’m close,” the Omega cried, his hips jerking forward to thrust his cock between Phil’s tightly-closed lips. Phil pushed his index finger against the Omega’s hole so that just the tip slid in, and the Omega started thrusting harder into his mouth, the tip of his cock ramming over and over again into Phil’s tongue. He let his mouth go a little slack and formed his lips into a soft O, creating a hot, slippery passageway for Dan to slide in and out of. “Ahh, fuck, Phil, _fuck_ ,” the Omega moaned, and then a moment later something hot and thick was pumping onto Phil’s tongue. He’d never tasted cum before, other than his own, secondhand, when he’d kissed Dan just after he’d sucked him off, and Dan’s tasted nothing like he’d expected. He’d thought it might taste something like his slick, but this was much lighter, salty with just a hint of bitterness. 

 

He kept sucking, letting the Omega’s thick cum slide down his throat as the thrusting of his cock between Phil’s lips gradually slowed to a stop. He could hear the Omega panting, pulling in deep gulps of air. He pulled off, licking the excess cum from the side of the Omega’s cock and giving it a few small kisses before he reached down to pull his pajama bottoms back up his legs.

 

When he crawled back up from under the covers, taking a deep breath in the sudden rush of cool air, Dan’s arms slipped around his waist at once, pulling him close so that the Omega could nose at his neck and drop tiny kisses along the side of his throat. He bent forward to bury his nose in the Omega’s hair, pulling in his heavy scent along with the air. The Alpha’s head was still spinning a little, but the Omega smelled satisfied for the moment, which was helping to clear his thoughts. He should go.

 

Dan pulled away then, mumbling something that he had a hard time catching.

 

“What was that?” he asked, bending his ear closer.

 

“Gotta get up now,” he heard Dan saying, “I can’t make you late again.”

 

Phil shook his head and tightened his arms around the Omega.

 

“You’re not going anywhere today, Dan,” he murmured. “You’re staying here with me in this room, just the two of us.”

 

The Omega stilled then, his head tilting back so that he could meet his Alpha’s eyes. He seemed to be looking for something there. His own eyes were narrowed and shifting back and forth across Phil’s face.

 

“Are you going to knot me, Phil?” he whispered at last. The Alpha noticed that his Omega’s body had begun to tremble. “It’s my heat now. You can knot me, if you want.”

 

Phil knew his heat couldn’t be too strong yet, as he was only asking to be knotted, not begging. Still, his words were making Phil’s pajama bottoms tighter, and he had to resist a strong urge to roll his hips against the Omega’s body. He stopped himself, though. They needed to talk, now, while Dan was still more or less rational.

 

“Are you scared, Dan?” he whispered. “You’re shaking.”

 

The Omega’s tongue appeared, swiping over his lips for a moment before he answered.

 

“A little bit,” he said. “But I want you. I want you so badly I can hardly stand it.”

 

Phil nodded. That was the heat talking, he was sure, yet Dan was still himself enough to admit he was a little scared.

 

“What do you think you’re scared about?”

 

The Omega’s eyes shifted down so that he appeared to be staring at the front of Phil’s pajama shirt now. The Alpha waited patiently for his response, but then Dan slid forward, pressing his face into Phil’s neck again, his head shaking from side to side.

 

“Nothing,” he breathed. “I just want you, Alpha. Please. I want you.”

 

His scent was changing again, as a new wave of heat rolled through him, and Phil’s dick twitched in response. He needed to go, now.

 

He loosened his grip on the Omega, which only made him cling harder to the Alpha’s shirt, whimpering pitifully in the back of his throat. Fighting the urge to bring his arms back up around the Omega at once took far more energy than Phil had expected. It almost physically pained him to have to move his hands up to Dan’s shoulders instead, push him away even as he planted a swift kiss against his hair.

 

“I have to go get condoms, okay? And then I’ll be right back,” he muttered as he rolled away from the whimpering Omega. “I’m sorry. I’ll be right back. Okay?”

 

Dan’s gaze was blurry as he stared up at the Alpha, his expression forlorn, but he nodded.

 

“Yes, Alpha. Please hurry.” His voice was very small, and Phil could hear it shaking with the effort of his self-control.

 

“I will. I promise,” Phil muttered before hopping off the bed and half-running to the bathroom. Once there, he quickly washed up, brushed his teeth and tore off his pajamas. He had to go back into the other room to get dressed, and as he walked in, the cloying scent of heat almost overwhelmed him. His knees shook as he forced himself to walk over to his wardrobe instead of back to the bed where he could see the outline of the Omega’s back. He noticed that the room had gradually grown brighter as the sun began to come up.

 

He longed to kiss Dan good-bye before he left. It was like there was a physical tether drawn taut between his body and the body lying on the bed, pulling him back with every step he took away. As he approached the door to the bedroom, he heard the Omega let out a low whine, and the small sound cut to the core of him. Quickly, before he could change his mind, he grabbed the door handle, yanked it open and then slammed it shut as soon as he stepped through. He leaned against it for a moment, panting and feeling absolutely drained. It was as though every cell of his body was protesting his actions. He’d never felt anything like it before.

 

Shaking his head to try to clear the Omega pheromones from it, he ordered his feet to carry him away. It took a few moments to get started, but it got easier, once he’d reached the end of the corridor. He thought it must be because Dan was out of the range of his sense of smell, though the memory of the Omega’s heat-laden scent still lingered vivid in his mind.

 

As his thoughts began to clear, he was able to start planning. It would probably be some time yet before Father was awake. He should go down to the shops first and then try to see his Father when he returned. If he couldn’t, maybe he could send a message for him with one of the house slaves. He didn’t want to leave Dan alone for any longer than he had to.

 

Outside, the cold was biting, and though the sky had grown lighter, it was still a moist, cloudy grey. The air was pregnant with the scent of rain, and as Phil reached the bottom of his home’s front steps, a sharp gust of wind rose and snatched at his hair. He turned the collar of his coat up against the wind, wishing more than ever that he was back inside in his warm bed with his warm Omega snuggled up beside him.

 

The pharmacy was only about a ten minute walk away, and with every step Phil took through the chill morning air, his head grew clearer. His conversation with Dan from earlier started playing back in his memory. “What do you think you’re scared about?” “Nothing.”

 

But he knew that wasn’t true. What if Dan was scared because he didn’t really want to be knotted? What if it was only his heat that made him say he wanted Phil? Sure, he’d said it before, during Phil’s rut and the day after, but maybe it had only been his hormones speaking. How could Phil really be sure?

 

Every step he took closer to the pharmacy, the more miserable he became, as he began to question more and more whether he was making the right decision. What if he knotted Dan, bit him and bonded with him, and then later, when they were both in their right minds, he discovered that Dan hadn’t wanted it at all, hadn’t wanted any of it?

 

Patrick’s words from the day before suddenly surfaced in his mind: “Once you bond with him, it will be impossible for him to hate you.” What if he was forcing Dan into something he didn't even want? If he bonded with him now, he may never know what Dan’s true feelings were…

 

He was standing out front of the shop now, and he could see the cashier inside, leaning bored against the counter as she watched something on a small television hanging from the ceiling. He paused, not sure whether he wanted to go inside or not. Maybe he should go back and talk to Dan again, use his Alpha voice to make him say what he was really scared of… Except that he knew as soon as he stepped into the room, Dan’s heat would start affecting him again. It would have grown even stronger by now, and there was every chance that he would take one step into the room and forget about everything other than getting his knot inside of the Omega.

 

Another huge gust of wind rose, whipping across Phil’s face and making him shove his hands into his coat pockets. There was a storm blowing in, and quickly. As Phil’s right hand slipped into his pocket, it hit against something solid there — his mobile where he’d shoved it into the pocket of his jeans. Right. He could just call Dan and talk to him… Except the Omega didn’t have his own phone. He didn’t really need one, as he was never far from Phil, but as Phil stood there wondering how he was going to get Dan on the phone, he decided that he was going to buy him one the very next chance he got.

 

He would have to call someone else and get them to go to his room and hand the phone to Dan.A Beta or another Omega would be best, considering what Dan smelled like at the moment. He didn’t think Dan would be happy about just anyone seeing him in that state, either, which Phil thought ruled out most of the members of the household. Then he thought of Will. Dan loved Will like they were his own family. He didn’t think the Omega would mind seeing Will while he was in heat. On the contrary, he might even find their presence comforting.

 

Unlike Dan, Will was often separated from their Alpha, since Sophie had already taken on more of the lifestyle of an adult Alpha and was away from home a lot. Nowadays, she attended lots of events like posh, Alpha-only parties or important political debates where Omegas weren’t really allowed. Because of this, Will did have their own mobile, so that the Alpha could feel secure in being able to speak to her Omega any time she needed to and vice versa.

 

Phil reached a decision and, digging his mobile out from under all his layers of clothes, dialed Will’s number. It was painfully early, but he hoped they would understand that this was important.

 

The phone rang for a long time with no answer, and Phil started to think that it must be on silent and the Omega couldn’t hear it. If they didn’t answer, Phil didn’t know what he would do. Then, at last, there was a click and a groggy “What do you want?” at the other end. Phil gulped. It was Sophie’s voice.

 

“Hey, Sophie, sorry to wake you. Is Will there? Can I speak to them?” He was glad, at least, that at this hour the streets were fairly empty and there was hardly anyone around to hear what he was sure was about to be a very awkward conversation.

 

“Why do you want to speak to my Omega at this ungodly hour of the morning?” she growled. She wasn’t really angry, he could tell, just cross from being woken up.

 

“I’m out of the house, and I need to ask Dan something, and he doesn’t have a phone,” Phil explained, huddling more deeply into his coat as the wind rose again.

 

“Well, why doesn’t he have one?” she demanded, and Phil sighed. He didn’t have time for a stupid argument right now. “You should really plan ahead for these types of situations better.”

 

“I’m going to get him one next chance I get,” Phil muttered, “but right now he doesn’t have one, so I was going to ask Will to do it.”

 

“Why Will?” Sophie sounded more awake now, and he could hear faint sounds in the background that suggested she might be getting out of bed. “They’re still asleep anyway. Maybe I could—“

 

“No!” Phil yelled at once. And then, before Sophie could tell him off for raising his voice to her, explained, “Dan’s in heat right now. That’s why it needs to be Will.”

 

“Oh,” Sophie said and then yawned loudly. The truth was, Dan would probably be as safe with Sophie as he would be with Will. Generally, Alphas didn’t respond to the heats of Omegas who smelled like family, including those who had bonded with or been scented by closely-related Alphas. With Phil’s scent all over him, Dan’s heat would probably be no more arousing to Phil’s sister than his own rut would have been. Nevertheless, he wasn’t taking any chances. “Why are you trying to have a conversation with an Omega in heat anyway? Sounds like a fool plan to me. You’d probably better just wait until after.”

 

Phil did his best not to sigh again.

 

“Please, Sophie. It’s important. I know you don’t want to wake Will, but—“

 

“Alpha Phil, is that you?” Will’s raspy morning voice interrupted him from the other end. Phil let out a breath of relief. Sophie must have handed the phone over.

 

“I’m really sorry to wake you up so early,” Phil began. “It’s just, Dan’s in heat, so I can’t be with him in the room right at the moment. I was wondering if you could take your phone to him so I can ask him something.”

 

There was a pause, and he thought he heard Sophie’s voice faintly in the background. Then Will spoke again.

 

“I should have realized it yesterday,” they said. “I noticed something about him smelled a little off, but… Where are you right now, Alpha Phil?”

 

“At the pharmacy,” he said, glancing up and around to see that the cashier was starting to fall asleep at her counter. “Um, I didn’t have any, um, condoms, so…”

 

“Oh,” said Will. “Just a moment and let me get dressed. I’ll call you back when I get to your room, okay?”

 

“Thanks,” Phil said and then the call was ended.

 

He knew it would probably take Will a little while to get dressed and walk over to Phil’s wing of the house. He figured he could either stand out here while the wind bit more and more of the warmth from his cheeks, or he could go inside and actually buy what he came here to buy.

 

The cashier gave a start when the automatic door chimed with Phil’s entrance, eyes popping open as she barked a sleepy welcome to the only customer she’d seen for at least half an hour.She was a Beta, Phil noted in the back of his mind as he started wandering through the aisles, searching for the condoms. It only took about a minute to find them, and then he carefully read the labels to make sure he was getting the right kind. In their special lecture at the Academy, they’d had to learn about the importance of using knotting condoms during rut or heat, and then they’d been made to practice applying a condom to a banana. Most of the Alphas had spent that part of the lesson making sly comments about how pathetically small the banana seemed in comparison to what they had between their own legs.

 

At last, Phil decided on a brand that he thought seemed good, and then he made his way up to the counter, checking the time on his phone. It had only been six minutes since he’d hung up with Will. 

 

“Will that be all for you, Sir?” the cashier asked as she rang up the single box of condoms. He felt too young to be a “Sir,” but he guessed she could tell that he was a member of a well-to-do family. People often could.

 

He glanced down to see what else was on offer: a row of various brands of gum and mints right above a rack of dirty magazines with black bars covering all but the titles, including things like, “Bad Beta Bitches” and “Naughty Omegas.”

 

“That’s it,” he said and then added a belated, “Thank you.”

 

A minute later, he had paid and was standing outside the shop again, wishing his phone would ring. After he’d stood there for another three minutes, he decided he might as well start walking toward his home again. He’d only walked about a block when his phone began buzzing in his pocket. He quickly pulled it out and answered.

 

“Sorry it took me so long, Alpha Phil!” Will’s voice came from the other end at once. They sounded a little out of breath, and Phil guessed it probably wasn’t from the walk to Phil’s room. He figured he had Sophie to blame for the delay and scowled a little at the thought. “I’m here at the door to your room now. Do you want me to just hand the phone to Dan?”

 

“Yeah, and could you tell him it’s me? I told him I’d be right back, and it’s already been a little while, so…”

 

“Of course,” the Omega replied. “Just a moment.”

 

He heard the sound of a door being opened and closed, accompanied by the distant noise of footsteps. Then he could just make out a faint voice, probably Dan asking who it was.

 

“It’s just me,” he heard Will say from some distance away. “Alpha Phil wanted to talk to you on the phone, but since you don’t have one, he called me instead.”

 

There were more footsteps then, followed by some rustling and scraping as the phone was handed over. Then he heard Dan’s small voice from the other end.

 

“Alpha, please come back,” he whispered. His voice was shaking, and he sounded like he had either been crying or was about to. Just the sound of his voice made every hair on Phil’s body stand on end. “Please. I need you.”

 

“I’m on my way,” Phil assured him, picking up his pace a little. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

 

Dan was silent for a moment, before he said, “I missed you too.”

 

That hadn’t really been what Phil had meant, but at the Omega’s words, his heart began to thud in his chest and he began to walk even faster. God, he wanted to be with Dan so badly right now.

 

“I’m coming back, soon,” he said again. “I just needed to make sure… You said you were scared. Please tell me why.”

 

He heard a few sniffles from the other end, and he knew Dan was definitely crying now.

 

“Please, Alpha,” he begged. His heat must have grown much stronger in the short time since Phil had left.

 

“Tell me,” Phil ordered him, switching into his Alpha voice. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an Omega walking past cringe. He could take time to feel bad for that later. Right now, he just needed to hear the truth from Dan.

 

He could hear the Omega on the other end of the line draw in a few shuddering breaths.

 

“I’m afraid you’ll look at me differently,” he sobbed at last. “I’m afraid we won’t talk anymore, that you’ll treat me like I’m just an Omega.”

 

He heard shushing sounds on the other end, and he guessed that Will was still nearby. He was glad of it. He wished so badly right now that he could be the one comforting Dan. How had he not known all this time that Dan worried about such things? He’d been so wrapped up in worrying about Dan’s feelings for him that it had never occurred to him that he should reassure the Omega about his own feelings.

 

“That won’t happen, Dan, I promise.”

 

“How can you promise that, Alpha?” he heard the other cry. “You don’t know how you’ll feel afterward. Maybe you’ll hate me. Maybe I won’t be good enough for you.”

 

Phil knew that the hormones of Dan’s heat were making him more emotional than usual. However, he also knew that, other than increasing their willingness to be knotted and bonded with, a heat couldn’t change an Omega’s feelings, only intensify them. These were things that Dan must have worried about even before today.

 

“I can promise it, Omega. I love you, Dan,” he said, biting his lip as soon as the words had left them. “I love you,” he repeated. “I’m going to love you even more after we’re bonded.”

 

There was no sound at all from the other end for what seemed like an eternity. Phil’s heart was pounding like it might explode as he waited to hear what Dan would say.

 

“You love me?” came Dan’s quiet voice at last.

 

“Yeah,” Phil said at once. “I love you, and I want to bond with you and raise children with you and grow old with you… I told you all of that last night, but maybe I should have just told you I loved you. To me, it means the same thing.”

 

“I love you, too, Phil,” he heard Dan whisper through his tears. “I don’t want any Alpha but you.”

 

The Omega’s words unfurled within the Alpha’s mind like a flower bud tentatively opening new petals. He grinned, uncaring of who might be out on the streets to see his expression of unbridled joy.

 

“I’ll be there soon, Dan. Just a little bit longer, okay?” He could see the front steps of his house now, just up the street. “I have to go speak to Father, and then I’ll be right there.”

 

“Please hurry,” the Omega said, and then the call ended. Phil shoved the phone deep in his pocket and started running.

 

Will had been standing discreetly by this entire time, pretending they hadn’t just heard the Alpha and Omega confess to a love that they knew ought to be discouraged. Just like his Alpha Father before him, Phil would most likely one day be required to marry for the good of the family. His eldest Beta and Omega siblings had already married and left the house, and as Will knew only too well, Alpha Lester was now in negotiations for Alpha Sophie’s marriage to a young Omega from a prominent family. Thanks to the chilly relationship between Omega Lester and Omega Kat, Phil’s mum, they all had daily proof that young Omegas from prominent families often didn’t take kindly to any partiality their Alphas showed to an Omega slave.

 

Will and Sophie had both very carefully avoided bringing up the topic of love. As the heir to the Lester name and fortunes, Sophie had even less right to fall in love with her slave than Phil did. Since he was a second Alpha, there was a small chance Phil might be able to remain unmarried, especially if Sophie did her duty and produced plenty of Alpha heirs. Still, it wasn’t a likely scenario. Marriages among Patrician families were more about solidifying alliances and building networks of connections than they were about producing offspring. After all, that’s what Omega slaves like Will and Dan were for.

 

When Dan had ended the call with Phil, he let Will’s mobile fall onto the pillow beside his head and let out a long groan.

 

Will did their best to set aside their troubled thoughts and sat down on the bed beside Dan.

 

“Did he say he would be back soon?”

 

Dan cast his head back against the pillow and shook it from side to side. Will could see tiny beads of sweat collecting on his forehead, but they’d come prepared. They had a washcloth in their hand that they’d wet in Phil’s bathroom, and they reached up now to dab Dan’s forehead clear.

 

“He said he needed to speak to Alpha Lester first,” Dan muttered, his voice faint. He was panting like he’d just been running flat out instead of simply lying in bed. Will dabbed at his forehead again, and he sighed. The coolness soothed him a little. “Thank you. That feels good.”

 

“You’re welcome. I know how awful it is, going through heat without your Alpha,” Will replied. They pulled their hand away then and reached for something that lay beside the bed. “I brought you something. I wasn’t sure how long Alpha Phil would be away, so…”

 

Dan opened his eyes, which he’d been squeezing shut to help him concentrate on not shoving his hand down his pants and getting himself off like he so desperately needed to. Hearing his Alpha’s voice without being able to smell him or touch him had only made his need all the stronger. It didn’t help that the whole room was drenched in the Alpha’s scent. He saw Will holding a large wooden box in their hands, and as he watched, they lifted the lid and pulled out several sizable toys, setting them on the bed beside Dan.

 

“Do you know what to do with these?” they asked, shutting the lid with a soft click and placing the box back on the floor.

 

Dan bit his lip and nodded. A couple of them looked quite realistically like actual penises, and even if they hadn’t, he’d heard all about such things from other Omegas.

 

“Thank you,” he murmured, trying to smile at Will but feeling too miserable to manage it properly. His whole body felt like it was made of fire, and his cock was aching with the intensity of his need. “I’ll make sure to wash them and give them back when I’m done.”

 

“No need,” Will grinned. “Consider these a gift from me and Omega Kat. We bought these for you a long time ago, for whenever this day came.”

 

Dan didn’t need to ask why they weren’t also a gift from Omega Lester, the other adult Omega of the household. The high-born Omega rarely concerned himself with the details of Omega Kat’s children’s lives, Phil’s least of all. The fact that Alpha Lester’s slave had born him an Alpha heir too had always been a bit of a sore spot for the Omega.

 

“Thank you,” Dan whispered again and then couldn’t hold in a whimper as a fresh wave of heat passed over him, scorching his skin and making his whole body throb with want.

 

“I should go now,” Will said, hopping off the bed and grabbing their mobile. They stopped just long enough to wipe down Dan’s brow again and then set the wet cloth on the bedside table within his reach. 

 

“Wait!” Dan cried, reaching out and taking hold of Will’s sleeve to keep them from leaving just yet. “I… I wanted to ask you something.”

 

Will gazed down at the trembling young Omega who lay splayed out atop the duvet. At some point before Will had come in, he’d already pulled off his pajama shirt, so that he was now dressed only in cotton pajama bottoms that they could see were already damp with slick. He was almost in full heat now. They hoped, for Dan’s sake, that Alpha Phil would hurry.

 

“What is it?” they asked, perching on the edge of the bed once more.

 

“Does it… I mean, will it… Will it hurt?” Dan whispered, not quite meeting the other Omega’s eyes. After what he and Phil had done the day before, he didn’t think it would, but he’d heard other Omegas talk about feeling pain when their Alphas were too rough with them or when there wasn’t enough lubrication…

 

He heard Will let out a small snort of laughter.

 

“During heat, and with the Alpha you want to be with? No. It won’t hurt,” they said, a smile appearing at the corners of their mouth. “Well, it will probably hurt a bit when he bites you, but you already know what that feels like, right?”

 

Dan’s hair rubbed against the pillow as he nodded his chin up and down. He wasn’t worried about being bitten. Will’s expression was amused, but their grey eyes were sympathetic and reassuring.

 

“Alpha Phil is a kind Alpha, and he cares for you. I’m sure he’ll be very gentle with you,” they said and stood again. “I really should go now.”

 

“Thank you,” Dan murmured again, barely opening his lips as he was afraid if he opened his mouth too wide a desperate moan would slip out.

 

“You’re welcome,” Will smiled.

 

A moment later, Dan heard the door close behind them, and he immediately ripped off his pajama bottoms and boxers and reached for the nearest of the toys Will had left on the bed beside him. It was a poor substitute for Phil, but at least it was something to tide him over until his Alpha appeared again.

 

The storm had broken just minutes before Phil reached his front steps, so by the time he was knocking on the door to his Omega Mother’s quarters his glasses were spattered with little droplets of rain. Fortunately, his coat, now hung on a hook in the front hall, had spared his clothes the worst of it. 

 

On the other side of the door, he could hear a pair of high-pitched voices demanding to know who was there, and he couldn’t help grinning at the sound. His two youngest siblings, his Mother’s Omega twins, were up already, even at this early hour.

 

“Phil!” his Mother exclaimed once she’d opened the door to find him standing there. She was still in her nightdress, with a dressing gown worn over it. “You’ve been outside in the rain.” She frowned as she took in his rain-dappled appearance.

 

“Yeah, I had to run to the shops. Is Father here? I need to speak with him.”

 

Her nose lifted in the air as he spoke, and then her eyebrows rose, and she looked at him even more closely. He couldn’t be sure what she smelled on him — a lingering trace of Dan’s heat, maybe, or possibly even just his Omega scent. He hadn’t had a chance to see her since he’d scented the Omega. He’d tried to find her yesterday, after speaking to his Alpha Father, but she’d been too busy with some mess the twins had gotten into. 

 

“I suppose this is about your Omega,” she observed. “Yes, your Alpha Father is here. Come in.” She opened the door wider, and Phil stepped through.

 

Once he was inside the room, he spotted his Father immediately, and his grin returned. The older Alpha was seated on the floor in front of the lit fireplace of his Mother’s sitting room, with the six-year-old twins on either side of him, each only half dressed for the day. As he approached, his Father was doing his best to coax his youngest daughter, Alice, into a red knit jumper. It wasn’t every Alpha who was willing to get involved in the tedious everyday details of caring for children, but Phil and his siblings were lucky that their own Alpha was one of them. He looked up when he heard Phil’s footsteps and raised his eyebrows.

 

“Phil? You’re up early,” he remarked but then had to turn his attention back to the small Omega who was trying to wriggle free from his grasp. He held up the jumper to her and said, “Look, Alice, I know you want to wear the blue one, but it’s still dirty from yesterday. Do you remember that mess you and your brother made?”

 

“It was a project!” the aforementioned brother objected. Unlike his sister, Robert did have a jumper on, but was apparently resisting putting on his trousers for the day. Everyone said that Omega children were supposed to be calm, obedient, and easy to take care of, but after surviving six years of the twins, Phil was pretty sure that was only a myth.

 

“Yeah, it was a science project!” Alice chimed in.

 

Alpha Lester sighed and then looked at his Alpha son again.

 

“Did you need something?” he asked. Phil could tell he wasn’t entirely paying attention to him.

 

“Just your permission to stay home from the Academy today. Dan’s in heat,” he cut right to the chase. Dan was still waiting for him, after all, and he didn’t want to take up too much of his busy Father’s time.

 

His words immediately drew his Alpha Father’s attention, though, which allowed Alice to make her escape at last. Breaking free from the Alpha’s grasp, she made a dash for the door that led into the bathroom, followed shortly by her brother. If Phil had to guess, he would say she was headed for the laundry hamper where her beloved blue jumper was hidden.

 

“Your Omega has gone into heat?” his Father’s voice sounded a little incredulous as he rose from the floor and dusted off his trousers. “So soon after your rut?”

 

Phil did his best not to bite his lip or blush. He hated showing any weakness in front of his Alpha Father, now that he was practically an adult.

 

“If you don’t believe me, you can call for Omega Will,” he said, raising his chin a bit to try to appear confident. “They, um, looked in on Dan for me while I was out,”

 

“Oh, that’s good,” his Mother’s voice came from behind him. “They’ll have made sure he has everything he needs.”

 

Phil was of the opinion that the only thing Dan needed right now was his Alpha, but he kept this thought to himself.

 

“No, no, I believe you. It’s just a little unusual. So, you are planning to bond with him today?” his Father questioned him, eyes narrowing as they considered Phil.

 

“Yes, Sir,” he answered, keeping his chin high as his Alpha scrutinized him.

 

“Is that such a good idea?” his Mother said, walking up beside him, though her gaze was fixed on her Alpha. Phil watched as his Father’s eyes shifted toward his Mother. He only looked at her for a brief moment and then nodded. The two of them had lived together so long, they hardly needed to speak for the other to know what they were thinking. Sometimes Phil found this endearing, but often, like right now, he found it irritating. _He_ didn’t know what was on his Mother’s mind. It would be nice if she’d just say what she was worrying about out loud.

 

“You haven’t forgotten, have you, that your Omega is still not on birth control,” his Alpha Father said then, turning his attention back to Phil.

 

“No, Sir. That’s why I just went out to the pharmacy,” he answered promptly, pulling the small black carrier bag the cashier had given him from his jeans pocket.

 

“Good lad,” his Father said, with a nod of approval and a quick smile.

 

“Just be careful,” his Mother put in, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t want your Omega getting pregnant, not until after you’re married.”

 

Phil had to fight the urge to roll his eyes and shrug off her hand. He knew why she was so worried. Her oldest child, Phil’s oldest Beta brother, had almost prevented Father from marrying Omega Lester. She’d become pregnant while Phil’s Alpha Grandmother was still in negotiations with Omega Lester’s family over the marriage contract, and when Omega Lester had learned that his future Alpha’s slave was expecting, he’d demanded they put the wedding on hold until after she had given birth. He had told Father point blank that if she bore an Alpha, the wedding was off permanently. It wasn’t an entirely unreasonable threat — Alphas had been known to choose the child of a slave as heir over their legal spouse’s child before, especially when that child was their oldest Alpha. Still, Phil didn’t think his Father would have done such a thing. He was of the opinion that Omega Lester should have known better.

 

“I know, Mum,” Phil said. “I’ll be careful.”

 

Neither of his parents had a chance to reply to that, for their conversation was suddenly interrupted by a shriek from the bathroom and then the sounds of two shrill voices raised in argument. Alpha Lester sighed, and said, “I’ll call the Headmaster for you once I straighten those two little imps out.”

 

Phil didn’t miss the swift glance his Father cast his Mother from the corner of his eye before he left. When he caught it, he realized that his Alpha had volunteered to take care of the twins because he could tell that Omega Kat had something to say to her son.

 

As soon as Father was gone, Phil’s Mother stepped in front of him and placed her hands on either side of his face, her eyes searching his.

 

“You love your Omega, don’t you?” she said in a low tone. Phil started, feeling warmth flush his cheeks. She continued before he could respond, “You smell like you’re in love. An Omega parent always knows,” and she raised one finger to tap the side of her nose as she gave him a small, wry smile.

 

“I…” Phil started, but the words stuck in his throat. He could tell Dan he loved him over and over and over again until he ran out of breath, but he couldn’t say it to his mum…or his Father…or anyone else. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be in love with a slave, but he’d thought it would be okay, as long as nobody knew. He’d thought he would be able to hide it.

 

“Be careful there too, Phil,” his Mother went on, not waiting for him to come up with something to tell her. “He’s a good Omega, but he can never be your husband.”

 

Phil nodded, feeling a lump rising in his throat. No, he could never marry Dan. Slaves weren’t allowed to marry, by law, and this was one law that very specifically applied to noble-born Alphas like Phil.

 

“I know, Mum,” he managed to say at last. “I’ll be careful.”

 

She smiled at him again, though the expression didn’t quite reach her eyes, and then she dropped her hands and stepped away.

 

“Run along then,” she told him. “Don’t keep the poor thing waiting any longer.”

 

“Yes, Mum,” he said, wishing she hadn’t started such a conversation at this particular moment, when he didn’t have the time to carry it further. But he couldn’t worry about that right now. He’d kept Dan waiting long enough, nearly an hour now he realized as he checked the time on his phone on the way out the door. He’d never seen an Omega in heat before, though with so many adult Omegas living in the same household, he wasn’t entirely ignorant of the way it affected them. He knew the intensity of their need could be excruciating without the comfort of their Alpha’s presence. He felt terrible that he was putting Dan through that, even though he knew it had been for the best.

 

He started running again as soon as the door shut behind him, down the corridor and to the stairs. Fortunately, his Mother lived in the same wing of the house as he did, and it was a short trip up a couple of flights of stairs and then down another corridor, and at last, at last he was back at his own door.

 

He pushed it open and was immediately overwhelmed by the scent hanging heavy in the air. He drew in a deep breath that made every inch of his skin tingle and then let it out slowly. As he shut the door behind him, a tiny whimper reached his ears, and he turned toward the bed to see what had to be one of the most arousing things he’d ever seen in his life.

 

Dan was crouched on the bed on his knees, with his face against a pillow and his beautiful arse in the air, facing Phil. He had one hand between his legs, tugging at his hardened member, and there was slick shining all up and down the backs of his thighs. His other hand was reaching back to spread himself open, and plunged deep into his hole was a massive, black toy. Even from here, Phil could see the way the pink skin of his rim was stretched around it, and the way his eyes were squeezed shut and his face flushed with heat and pleasure stopped Phil dead in his tracks as he imagined him making that face for his Alpha instead.

 

A moment later he was yanking his jumper over his head and tearing at the button of his jeans, impatient to be on the bed next to his Omega, touching him and running his nose along his skin to fill himself up with its gorgeous scent.

 

He must have made some noise, or maybe the Omega just sensed his presence, but as he stood their ridding himself as fast as he could of his clothes, Dan’s eyes opened and fixed themselves on him.

 

“Alpha,” he moaned at once, his voice cracking on the word. “Alpha, please. Need your knot. Need you inside me. Please, please, please.”

 

There were tears at the corners of his eyes again, and Phil could see the evidence on his legs and on the bedsheets that he had already come at least a couple of times while Phil was gone.

 

“I’m here, Omega. I’m coming,” he hurried to say as he shook himself out of his jeans at last and then bent to pull the bag from the pocket. He was still in his boxers, but that was close enough. He stumbled across the room to the bed, dropping the bag with the condoms onto his bedside table before climbing up next to Dan at last, kneeling beside him and smoothing his palms over his back in an effort to calm him.

 

The Omega drew in a gasping breath at his Alpha’s touch. It was like the fire that had been eating its way across his skin, slowly consuming him, had suddenly concentrated itself just in the places where his Alpha’s skin met his. He sighed, and the sound was almost a sob.

 

“Thank you,” he breathed. “Thank you, Alpha.”

 

“Shh, shh,” Phil whispered, bending near his ear to plant a kiss on his cheek there and then nuzzling his nose against the Omega’s neck. His scent was stronger than Phil had ever known it to be. He smelled like wood smoke and summer sweat and lust and cum, and Phil breathed deeply of him, wondering if he would ever be able to get enough. His cock was straining against his boxers already, and all rational thought was being swept aside in a tidal wave of heat.

 

“Gonna knot you,” he whispered into the Omega’s ear. “You’re mine. My Omega.”

 

“I’m yours,” the Omega panted out. “Always yours. Your Omega.”

 

As he spoke, Phil let his hand trail down the Omega’s back, his fingertips dragging lightly across the damp skin until he reached the base of his spine.

 

“I’m gonna make you come again, Dan,” the Alpha murmured into the skin of his neck. “Wanna see your pretty expression when you come.”

 

The Omega whined in the back of his throat. His whole body was trembling with need. All he could think about was the scent of his Alpha, the way he smelled of autumn and rainstorms and want. He was already on the verge of coming again, the thick toy inside of him pressing on that one delicious spot he had discovered, and his hand still around his own cock desperately squeezing it. But then he felt the Alpha’s fingertips tracing around the raw, stretched rim of his hole, and his hips jerked forward at the sensation, his hand dropping from around his member in shock.

 

Phil’s body was so near him, his face still rubbing against his neck, and then he felt the Alpha’s fingers grasp the end of the toy sticking out of him, and he whined again, not knowing what the Alpha was going to do.

 

“Do you like feeling this inside of you, Omega?” he heard the low voice growl in his ear. “You should see the way your little hole is stretched all around it.”

 

Dan couldn’t think in words anymore, only sensations. The words were tickling his ear, and the Alpha’s hand was slowly, slowly, dragging the toy out of him, its ridges rubbing along the inside of his passage, one of them stroking every now and then over his sweet spot. Every time it did, his whole body jerked at the shock of intense pleasure that pierced through his abdomen.

 

“You smell delicious,” the Alpha was whispering again. “I wonder if you taste as good as you smell.”

 

He felt the toy slip out of him entirely then, leaving him feeling empty and stretched out.

 

“Look at me,” the Alpha ordered, his voice farther away now, so the Omega opened his eyes and looked up to see the Alpha kneeling there beside him, raising the black toy to his lips. It was coated in a thick layer of his slick, and as Dan watched, the Alpha met his eyes, smiled at him, and then stuck his tongue out and licked the toy from its base all the way to its rounded head, gathering a mouthful of slick in the process. He swallowed and then licked his lips, never looking away from Dan’s eyes for a moment. “I love the way you taste, Omega,” he murmured.

 

A shudder passed through the Omega’s body, and he had to close his eyes for a moment, overwhelmed by the intensity of his desire.

 

“Please,” he whispered, because it was the only thought he could manage.

 

He heard the Alpha moving, felt his presence behind him now, and then the tip of the toy was pressing against his hole again. He cried out as it was pushed inside, all the way to the base, and then he felt the Alpha bending near his backside, and he could hear him drawing in another deep breath, taking in the scent of his slick and his heat. And then he felt something warm and moist pass over his stretched rim, the Alpha’s tongue, and he cried out again, the sound somewhere between a moan and a sob. The Alpha’s tongue traced a slow path all the way around his rim, licking away the slick that was leaking out of him, and then it continued further down his buttocks and then to his inner thigh, the smooth, warm texture of it sending chills through him as it passed over the sensitive skin.

 

“Feels good,” he muttered, barely aware that he was even speaking. “Feels so good, Alpha.”

 

He heard the Alpha make a low, satisfied noise in his throat, and his tongue kept moving, back up Dan’s thigh now and over the curve of his buttock until it reached a spot a little below his rim. He felt the Alpha pause there and then press the flat of his tongue hard against the skin between his hole and his balls. He’d never known before that this was an area of his body that could bring him pleasure, but as the Alpha pressed in harder, he hit that same spot that Dan had found inside him, and the combined pressure of the Alpha’s tongue and the thick toy inside him sent a pulse of white hot pleasure throughout the lower half of his body and all the way up his spine, and suddenly, without warning, he was coming again, his hips thrusting forward into the air as his stiff cock pumped cum out all over the bedsheets again.

 

He almost screamed as the orgasm rocked through him, the combined effect of his heat and the scent of his Alpha pushing him toward a more intense high than he’d ever experienced before.

 

When it was over, he collapsed onto the bed, feeling utterly spent. He felt Phil pull the toy out of him, his body jolting again at the feeling of it passing over that spot. Then the Alpha crawled up behind him, pulling him against his chest and cradling him in his arms. He felt lips against his cheek and a hand pushing the sweat-soaked hair from his forehead. Already, he was getting hard again, and he was quivering as the heat in his body began to climb again.

 

“I’m sorry I left you so long,” came Phil’s soft voice. “I’m going to take care of you now. Don’t worry.”

 

Dan nodded his head a little, too exhausted to move much more than that. There were still thick ribbons of slick pouring out of the back of him, and his hole was aching to feel the Alpha’s knot inside of him, but for the moment he just didn’t have the energy for it. He’d come four times while waiting for Phil, and he wished he could just go back to sleep now, but his heart was fluttering in his chest and his whole body was tense and alive with need.

 

“I’m so tired, Phil,” he murmured, snuggling back against him and feeling the relief that could only come from being near his Alpha.

 

He felt the Alpha’s hand on his stomach then, palm smoothing over his skin, his touch sending ripples of pleasure spiraling down toward his groin. He groaned softly as the Alpha’s fingers slid into the hair between his legs, down to the base of his cock, where they gripped it tightly for a moment before moving further down and loosely cupping his balls.

 

“I’m gonna make you cum one more time,” the Alpha whispered from behind him, planting another gentle kiss on his cheek, “and then you’re going to sleep for a little while. Can you do that?”

 

Dan nodded again. He felt too on edge to sleep, but if it was what his Alpha wanted, he could do it.

 

“Good boy,” the Alpha murmured, his fingers kneading the Omega’s scrotum lightly. He whined at the feeling, wishing it was more, so the Alpha shushed him, pressing kisses into his neck. The Omega drew in a deep breath, letting the Alpha’s scent fill him and reassure him. As long as his Alpha was here, he knew he would have everything he needed.

 

The Alpha’s hand moved then, his fingers trailing even lower until they found that place again, in between Dan’s balls and his leaking entrance. The pads of two of the Alpha’s fingers pressed firmly down there, stroking up and down along the area, all the while maintaining their pressure. Each time they neared Dan’s hole, they passed over that spot, and searing pleasure shot through him, causing his hips to push forward just a bit.

 

“I want you, Alpha. Want you inside,” he whimpered.

 

“Shh, in a moment. Just close your eyes for me, okay?”

So Dan closed his eyes and concentrated on the feeling of the Alpha’s fingers stroking up and down, up and down between his legs. After a while, he felt the Alpha’s other hand move down to his dick, taking it in a firm grasp while his thumb rubbed slowly over the leaking head. The Omega moaned, openmouthed, and rubbed his hips back against the Alpha’s body, feeling his huge, hard cock pressing into his buttocks.

 

The fingers between his legs were pushing down again, pressing over that spot, but this time they didn’t stop. They kept going, continuing down into the crevice between his buttocks, sliding through the trails of slick there until at last they found his entrance. He needed them inside him so badly. It was all he could think about, the feeling of something shoving inside him, stretching him open and filling him up. The Alpha’s two fingers pressed against his rim, slipping smoothly inside, and he bit his lip and moaned in the back of his throat.

 

“I love the way you feel inside,” he heard the Alpha murmuring. “It’s so hot…so wet…”

 

The two fingers pushed inside just a few inches and then they pressed inward, toward his abdomen, moving around side to side and up and down as though they were searching for something. The hand on his cock was stroking him slowly, sliding his foreskin up and down his length and giving the head little squeezes every now and then.

 

Then suddenly the fingers inside him found what they were looking for. They grazed across that one spot, just as the fingers on his cock squeezed gently at the head, and he flung his head back onto the Alpha’s shoulder, panting and moaning through his open mouth.

 

“There it is,” Phil whispered. “You gonna come for me now, Omega?”

 

The Omega whined in the back of his throat as the Alpha’s fingers rubbed lightly over that spot again and then pressed down for a moment, and he felt his cock twitching in the Alpha’s hand as a small amount of cum dribbled out the tip of it.

 

“Wanna come,” he breathed. “I wanna come with you inside me.”

 

The Alpha’s fingers picked up their pace then, pushing in deeper, all the way down to their base and then pulling out, each time grazing over that spot that filled Dan with white hot pleasure, and the Alpha’s other hand was pumping at his cock, squeezing out the little drops of cum that were leaking out from the pressure he was applying inside him.

 

The tension was coiling in Dan’s abdomen again, making his body twitch forward with each thrust of the Alpha’s fingers.

 

“Come for me, Dan,” Phil whispered in his ear, squeezing the tip of his cock between the thumb and forefinger of one hand while the fingers of the other bore down on the sweet spot inside of him. The Omega’s body thrust forward again and then again, and then he was coming, the warm pleasure rolling in waves through his whole body as a few spurts of cum spilled from the tip of his cock and into his Alpha’s hand. He could feel the Alpha’s whole body pressed up against his back, and his lips were on his neck again, leaving deep, languid kisses there. He let out a long, sobbing gasp at the blissful feeling of relief that was flooding through him along with the orgasm.

 

“Go to sleep now,” the Alpha told him, his voice quiet but insistent. The Omega’s body felt more relaxed than it had in hours, and as usual, when his Alpha gave him a direct order, he found it impossible to refuse. He dropped into sleep so quickly that he didn’t even feel the Alpha’s fingers slip out of his body or hear him whispering softly how much he loved him, over and over again.

 


	4. An Ever-Fixed Mark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Omega!Dan and Alpha!Phil bond.

Dan was dreaming about his Alpha.

 

He was dreaming about his Alpha, but not the nearly-grown version of him lying in the bed beside him. He was dreaming of the eleven-year-old Alpha boy whom he had first met at the slave auction house five years ago.

 

He was dreaming of himself standing on a low platform in a small room, naked except for a wool blanket clutched around his shoulders and of a boy who walked up to him, looked him in the eye and grinned.

 

They’d told him to take off all his clothes because the Alpha wanted to inspect him fully before buying him, but one of the Beta slaves who worked at the auction house had given him the blanket and told him he could wear it until the Alpha came.

 

Up until then, it had been one of the most terrifying days of Dan’s life.

 

His Alpha Mother had gotten the call the evening before that an Alpha buyer had expressed an interest in Dan and wanted to inspect him further. She’d been shocked, as she’d only put him up for sale two days before. Dan had been even more shocked. He’d expected it to be longer, a few weeks more, at least, with his family before being sold as a slave to some strange Alpha. But then the call had come, and the next morning he’d hugged his Omega Mother and all his siblings good-bye, sobbing as he knew he’d never see them again. He’d gone willingly, though. They were a family of eight, too many for his Alpha Mother to support on her meager salary, and he was the eldest. He knew that the money his Alpha earned from his sale would keep his younger siblings fed and clothed and housed for a long time to come.

 

At the auction house, they’d taken him back into the same examination room where the slave master and a physician had examined him two days before, taking notes on his general appearance and health. They’d also registered his scent profile, taken photos, and written a detailed history of his short life based on anything and everything his Alpha could remember. These were the things that the unknown buyer had been shown that had led to Dan returning now, for another quick inspection — just to make sure there were no new marks or disfigurations — before he was to be presented to his prospective new Alpha.

 

Dan had clung to his Alpha Mother’s side as she had one final conversation with the slave master.

 

“And she’s an adult Alpha, you said? Buying for herself, not a child?” his Mother had asked, and he’d thought he heard misgiving in her tone.

 

“She did not say for whom she was buying, Madam,” the portly slave master had intoned, looking down his nose at the impecunious Alpha. “And I did not inquire.”

 

“You don’t think she would…” his Mother cast him a sideways glance, “You don’t think she would knot him, at his age?”

 

“That would be illegal, Madam,” the slave master had said, folding his lips together primly.

 

His Mother had shot another look at him, and he’d clung to her even tighter. He may have only been nine years old, but he hadn’t exactly had a sheltered upbringing. The area of London his family lived in was little better than a slum, and he’d seen far more of the world than many an older person. He was not ignorant of the things that Alphas and Omegas did together, and he had no difficulty understanding what his mother was asking.

 

“But you say she offered £20,000?” she asked the slave master at last. Dan remembered the way she’d gasped and repeated the number when she’d first heard it over the phone. He also remembered her remarking to his Omega Mother than she hadn’t thought Dan would sell for even half that.

 

“Yes, and 65% of the pre-tax sale will be yours,” the slave master had said, adding after a moment, “as it states in the contract you signed.”

 

That had been a shock for her, too. When she’d been trying to decide whether to put Dan up for sale or not, she’d heard from her contacts not to expect an initial offer higher than 35% of her son’s price. When, post-examination, the slave master had offered her 55%, her jaw had nearly dropped. She’d still haggled, of course, even though she hadn’t understood why her son had been valued so high. When she’d heard the amount of £20,000 over the phone, though, she’d begun to get an inkling.

 

She’d knelt down in front of Dan then, brushing her long, dark hair out of her wan face and trying to smile at him.

 

“You’re going to live in a big, fancy house, Dan, with fancy clothes and nice furniture. There will always be plenty to eat, and the house will be warm in the winter,” she’d told him, placing her hands on his shoulders. “You’ll have a nice, easy life now.”

 

And he’d nodded and tried not to think about what else might come along with that life.

 

“Yes, Mother,” he'd said, and maybe his lower lip had been trembling just a little bit, but he hadn’t cried. He’d been too proud to cry.

 

Then she’d squeezed his shoulders with her long-fingered hands and turned to talk to the slave master again, something about the terms of the contract, and a Beta slave had come to lead Dan away, and the last he’d ever seen of her was a glimpse of the back of her tattered, old coat around a corner as he turned into a corridor.

 

The room they’d taken him to was gorgeous. It was hands-down the nicest room Dan had ever seen in his life, with wood-paneled walls and high-backed leather chairs, a big mantelpiece over a roaring fire, and a red Persian rug on the floor. The Beta had helped him step up onto the platform and then taken his clothes in exchange for the blanket. They didn’t say why the Alpha wanted to see him naked before buying him, but he could guess.

 

“The Alpha will be here momentarily,” the Beta slave had told him, offering him a smile that wasn’t unkind. “You should set the blanket aside when she comes in so that she can inspect you properly.”

 

Dan had nodded, and then the slave had disappeared. When the door had shut behind them, Dan had discovered that his knees were shaking and he felt almost dizzy with fear.

 

The Beta had said the potential buyer would be there momentarily, but as Dan stood, he watched the hands of the gold and enamel clock on the mantelpiece make almost a full circuit of its face. His legs had grown tired of standing and his hands of holding the blanket in place. He’d longed to sit down, either in one of the cushy-looking chairs or on the invitingly-thick spot of carpet in front of the fireplace. But he was a slave now, and even if he hadn’t been, he was still just a little Omega boy from a poor family — he was used to doing as he was told by people bigger, better, and more powerful than he. He’d been told to stand, so stand he did.

 

And then the door had opened, and in had walked, not an adult Alpha female but an Alpha boy, followed by an adult Alpha male and the slave master. He hadn’t been able to stop himself staring in confusion as the boy had marched right up to him, cheeks round with a huge smile, and stopped, closed his eyes, sniffed a few times and then opened them again. He’d stared straight into Dan’s eyes, grinning all the while.

 

“Hello! My name is Philip Michael Lester, and I’m your Alpha now,” the boy had said. And then, to Dan’s utter dismay, the Alpha boy had stuck out a hand, as though he expected Dan to shake it.

 

Dan had glanced at the adult Alpha and the slave master in bewilderment, hoping for some cue from them as to what he should do. The slave master had given him a quick, curt nod, and so he’d looked back at the smiling Alpha boy and, taking hold of the edges of the blanket in one hand, held out his other hand to shake.

 

“What’s your name?” the boy had prompted as he’d taken Dan’s hand and given it a couple of brisk shakes. When Dan had tried to let go, the boy had just kept holding on.

 

“I-I’m Dan,” he’d barely managed to stutter out. The boy and the other Alpha were dressed in such nice clothes, so clean and well-made, with no tears or patches anywhere that Dan could see. It didn’t feel right that he was being allowed to touch someone like that.

 

“Nice to meet you, Dan,” the boy had said, swinging his hand a little in his grasp. “Why are you wearing a blanket?”

 

Dan had opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and then just looked to the slave master once more for help.

 

Fortunately, that’s when Alpha Lester had stepped in, telling his son, “That’s because we brought him a new outfit to wear, with the Lester insignia on it. Beta Owen has it out in the car. Would you run along and get it from him?”

 

“Yes, Father,” the Alpha boy had said, letting go of Dan’s hand at last. He’d shot him a parting grin before dashing out the door.

 

Once he had gone, Alpha Lester had walked up to Dan and placed his hands on his shoulders, much as his Alpha Mother had done an hour before.

 

“You’ll come to live with us now, Omega, and you’ll stay in my son’s room. He will be your Alpha, and you will serve him every day. One day you will bond with him and bear him children. Do you think you would like that?”

 

His pale eyes had been so serious as they looked into Dan’s. Dan didn’t have much experience with the nobility, but he knew the scent of a powerful Alpha when he met one. His knees started shaking again just at the thought of trying to lie to this Alpha.

 

“Y-yes, S-sir. I-I think… I-I think I-I would.”

 

Then, to Dan’s complete shock, Alpha Lester had knelt down in front of him, hands still on his shoulders, and face more serious than ever.

 

“Are you sure, Omega? You can say you wouldn’t like it, and I will pay your price and send you home to your family instead. Would you rather just go home?”

 

Dan’s eyes had gone round at the Alpha’s question. Was he serious? Or was this some sort of trick? His face looked like he meant it, his voice sounded truthful, and even his smell seemed firm and determined.

 

He’d thought about it for a full minute. He’d squeezed his eyes shut and tried to forget about the Alpha kneeling before him and the room and the slave master, and he’d thought about home. He’d imagined his Omega Mother stood at the stove in the kitchen with his youngest sister on her hip and two other little ones playing at her feet. He’d thought of the bed he’d lain in next to two of his siblings every night he could remember, of the whole, noisy family crowded around the table at meals, and how there was never enough to go around and there were always at least two people full-on crying. He thought of draughts in the winter and searing heat in the summer, of clothes worn long past their usefulness, of bugs scuttling in the corners. That was home, his whole world, and he missed it fiercely.

 

And on the other hand there was an Alpha boy with a grin and shining eyes who shook his hand and who smelled like cheerful winter sunshine and vanilla ice cream and mischief and laughter.

 

A few minutes later, the boy had come back and found Dan sitting in one of the chairs with the blanket wrapped tight around him, and Dan had changed into his new clothes, and then the Alpha boy had slipped his hand into Dan’s again, and as their palms had met, Dan had felt his whole world shift and shake and settle into a new perspective. He’d never told Phil about that conversation with his father. He’d never told Phil that he’d had a choice.

 

And he was dreaming of that moment now, of the Alpha boy’s hand in his, leading him from the little room and out to a shiny black car. He was thinking of the way it had felt to have the skin of his palm pressed against Phil’s for the first time, how it had felt like golden warmth was flowing from that hand and into his and from there throughout his whole body. He was dreaming of how Phil was warmth and change and all the home he’d ever need.

 

There was something he needed to say to the Alpha, something he wanted to tell him that felt so strong and urgent that he couldn’t even find a word for it. It was as though the very core of him were the golden heat that Phil had filled him with, and now that heat was spilling out into his limbs and his mind and his mouth, yearning towards its source again, longing to be reunited with the warmth that lived beneath Phil’s skin.

 

In the dream, he tumbled through a series of vaguely-sensed impressions: Phil’s hand in his, Phil’s room full of sunlight in the spring, the corner of Phil’s lips that curled up just before he laughed, Phil’s sleepy morning face, the scent of Alpha, the scent of rut, the Alpha’s body pressing him into the bed, Phil’s hands on his back, Phil’s voice in his ear, Phil moving inside him, pushing them both toward their high—

 

He woke trembling and sweating, with flames flickering beneath the surface of his skin, to the sound of his own voice, whining softly and whispering Phil’s name.

 

“I’m here,” he heard the Alpha whisper in return, and he could feel him against his back, the Alpha’s body surrounding his, cradling him. There was a hand on his abdomen, rubbing slow, deep circles into his skin.

 

He turned in the Alpha’s arms, clasping his hands behind the Alpha’s neck and drawing his lips near. He kissed them hungrily, impatient to taste him, already impatient to have more of him. The Alpha kissed him back, hands in hair, then on his back, then on his buttocks. He had his own hands in the waistband of the Alpha’s boxers, yanking them down and not caring that he hadn’t pulled them all the way off. He just wanted to get his hands on him, gripping his hips and then the base of already-hardened cock.

 

The Alpha growled low in his throat as the Omega’s hurried hands grasped his shaft. Dan had slept for nearly an hour, twitching and whining in his sleep and occasionally rubbing himself up against the Alpha. It had been a sweet kind of torture holding him as he exuded the scent of heat from every pore of his body, making the Alpha feel crazier and crazier with want. He’d already gotten off once, just from the Omega grinding against him in his sleep, but within minutes he’d been hard again, his body urged on by the Omega’s lust-heavy scent.

 

He rolled Dan over onto his back now, planting a hand beside him to support himself as he crouched over the Omega’s body. The Omega’s arms were flung around his neck, pulling him closer, and as he watched, the Omega parted his knees so that the Alpha could lower himself between them. He remembered his dream, then, of a couple of nights ago, but the real Dan had far more lust in his eyes and smelled even better than his imagination had suggested.

 

“Make me yours, Alpha, please, please,” the Omega begged. “Need to feel you inside.”

 

The Alpha ran his right hand down the inside of the Omega’s left thigh, growling with pleasure at the way the Omega shivered and trembled at his touch.

 

“I can’t wait to get inside your wet little hole,” he whispered as he ran his fingers lightly over the Omega’s leaking entrance. He pushed a finger inside, feeling the tension in his abdomen rise at the way the Omega’s body jerked in response. He pushed another finger in, sliding them in and out easily. The heat had caused his body to open itself in preparation for the Alpha’s massive girth and the stretch when his knot finally swelled.

 

“Need your knot,” the Omega sobbed as his Alpha’s fingers shoved into him, spreading apart to stretch him open even wider. “Need you inside.”

 

Phil’s cock was dripping sticky strings of pre-cum onto the Omega’s abdomen, and it took every ounce of self-control not to plunge himself right in the moment he had pulled his fingers out. But he didn’t, and instead he reached for the box of condoms on the bedside table, fumbling to get it open and pull one free from the others.

 

“No, no,” the Omega whined, desperation twisting his expression. “Wanna feel just you. I wanna feel your cum inside me. Want you to fill me up with your cum.”

 

A shudder of pleasure passed through the Alpha’s body at the Omega’s desperate words. It was what he wanted too, what his whole body was urging him toward — fill the Omega up with his seed, fill him up with cum and let his body grow big and round with his offspring. He could just imagine the feeling of it, of his cum spurting inside of Dan, the hot stickiness of it coating his inner walls and Phil’s cock all at the same time — but no. No, he couldn’t do that, not yet at least.

 

“Shh, not today, Omega,” he murmured, pausing to cup a palm around Dan’s cheek to calm him. “I’m gonna knot you and bite you and bond with you today. I’ll breed you another time. I promise.”

 

The Omega squeezed his eyes shut and flung his head back against the pillow in frustration, but he didn’t say anything further. It took Phil far longer than he’d wanted to get a single condom out of the box, rip open the foil package and roll the thin bit of latex over himself. Below him, Dan’s entire body was trembling, and his fingers at the back of Phil’s neck were digging so deeply into his skin they hurt.

 

Finally, the condom was on, and he tossed the box and the empty wrapper carelessly off the side of the bed as he crouched back over the Omega, leaning forward to trail a few hurried kisses along his cheek.

 

“Phil, please,” the Omega gasped into his ear, so he knelt back and took hold of the Omega’s calves, pulling his legs up until his knees bent and then pushing them backward toward the Omega’s chest to allow him better access to his entrance. Then he reached down and took hold of his own cock in one hand, guiding it down to the swollen, pink hole between the Omega’s thighs.

 

“Are you ready, Dan?” he asked, shaking with the effort it was taking to restrain himself.

 

The other boy nodded, his eyes shut again, and there were tears streaming out from the corners of his eyes.

 

He rubbed himself up against Dan’s entrance first, sliding his full length through the slick there and then using his hand to spread the lubricant across the rest of the condom. The Omega moaned softly at the feeling of the Alpha’s hard cock pressing against him, so close to where he needed it.

 

Then the Alpha placed his tip against the entrance, feeling a shock of anticipation tighten in his abdomen, and a moment later he was pushing in, his whole body aglow with the sensation of the Omega’s body opening up for him, the slick warmth inside that was pulling him in deeper and deeper. As he slid further in, the Omega cocked his chin back, his expression gone completely slack as he was overwhelmed by the feeling of the Alpha pushing into him. Phil was almost all the way inside when the Omega’s mouth fell open and he let out a long breath that was half moan, half sigh, and the sound made it impossible for Phil to move slowly anymore. He shoved himself that last little bit of the way in, groaning at the indescribable feeling of the Omega’s body clenched tightly around him.

 

For a moment they lay like that, the Alpha plunged deep inside the Omega, and the Omega lying quiet, shivering and chest heaving up and down.

 

“Fuck me, Alpha, please,” the Omega whispered then, eyes still shut tight, mouth still hanging open, “Fuck me hard.”

 

The Alpha didn’t need any further invitation. He gripped the other boy’s knees for leverage, one in each palm, and then he pulled out only to thrust back in, burying himself fully inside the Omega’s hole and pausing to feel every inch of him before pulling back out and pushing back in again.

 

It felt amazing, and not just because of the heat and the slick and the tightness, but because it was Dan — because he could see the way each tiny shift in Dan’s expression matched each movement of his own body, and he could hear the way Dan’s breath stopped and started with each thrust, see the way his chest rose and fell as he gasped for breath, and Phil’s whole body was bathed in Dan’s scent, Dan’s beautiful scent that had filled his every hour for the last five years.

 

The Omega opened his eyes at last as the Alpha was thrusting into him again, and the expression in them as he met the Alpha’s eyes made Phil drop his knees, reach forward and cup both of the Omega’s cheeks between his palms, made him lean down, to press their foreheads together and then their lips, thrusting into him again and again all the while. When he pulled back at last, so they could both drag in panting breaths, their eyes stayed locked together, as though they could continue the kiss with their gazes alone.

 

Without warning, Dan suddenly let out a small moan and then his eyes were squeezing shut and his body rutting up as cum spilled out of the tip of his cock and onto his stomach and chest. As he came, his body clenched even more tightly around Phil, sucking his cock even deeper inside and sending a surge of warmth spiraling out through the Alpha’s entire body.

 

“Fuck, Dan, fuck, I’m gonna—“ but he didn’t finish the sentence before he felt the knot at the base of his cock begin to thicken, and he shoved back into the Omega’s body one final time before he felt the knot swell to its full size, stretching the Omega’s hole wider than it had ever been stretched before, and then Phil was coming too, hot cum pumping out of him and into the condom, more than he’d ever come before. The Omega was moaning, his cock already hardening again at the overwhelming stretch from the Alpha’s knot, and Phil just kept coming, his hips still jerking forward and wedging his knot ever deeper inside of the Omega, and at last he bent over the Omega’s left shoulder, drew in a final breath of his unbonded scent, before he sank his teeth deep into the bonding gland near his neck.

 

“Phil,” he heard the other boy groan as he bit into his shoulder, “I love you, Alpha. I’ve always loved you.”

 

Dan was riding high on a wave of his own orgasm and the feeling of the Alpha’s knot buried inside him and the rush of endorphins released as his bonding gland was bitten, and all he could think about was Phil, the boy who had claimed him years ago, the boy who’d been his Alpha since that day at the auction house, the boy he’d belonged to all this time, bond or no.

 

The Alpha was still coming, his body pouring seed into the Omega’s body, and his knot was pressed against that spot inside of Dan, sending the Omega tumbling over the edge again, his hips jerking up against the Alpha’s body and his cock thrusting dry toward his stomach.

 

The Alpha released the Omega’s shoulder at last, his mouth full of the taste of blood and the hormones the Omega’s bonding gland had released. His hips were still pushing weakly forward, though their pace was finally slowing to a stop, and as he raised his head to rest his forehead against Dan’s again, his orgasm finally came to an end with one final lazy thrust of his hips.

 

“I love you too,” he whispered against his lips before pressing his tongue between them to share Dan’s own taste with him.

 

The Omega sucked at the Alpha’s tongue, savoring the taste of their freshly-made bond for a moment before he started moaning again. He had come down from his second high only to find himself being pushed toward orgasm again by the pressure inside of his hole and the intoxicating hormones still cascading from his bonding gland.

 

Phil pulled back to watch as the Omega’s eyes screwed shut again and his mouth fell open in a soundless scream, and his body rolling with his climax clenched around Phil’s cock, making him squeeze his eyes shut too at the overstimulation of his sensitive knot.

 

“Oh, fuck, Dan,” he breathed into the other boy’s mouth as he felt the Omega’s clenching hole squeeze a last few drops of cum from his still-hard cock. The Omega strained forward to push his lips against the Alpha’s again as he came down from his high. They kissed for only a moment, both too exhausted to hold it for long, and when they broke apart, the Alpha collapsed onto the Omega, laying his cheek against the bloody mark on his shoulder and gasping for breath.

 

He could smell that the Omega’s scent was changing now as his heat ended and the hormones of his bonding gland worked their way throughout his bloodstream. His own scent was changing too, as Dan’s bonding hormones worked their way into his body as well. He breathed deeply of the new scent in the room, the scent that was neither Dan nor Phil but somehow both blended together, and as it filled his lungs, he felt his heart fill too, with a glowing contentment that made him feel more whole and real than he ever had before.

 

The Omega could smell the change in his Alpha, the satisfaction radiating out from him, and now that the haze of heat was clearing from his mind, he could finally think fully and deeply about what it all meant. He was a bonded Omega now, with a bonding mark on his shoulder and a new scent that was still settling into place. He belonged to Phil now and Phil belonged to him, in every way that an Alpha and Omega could belong to one another. There were tears still leaking from his eyes, but these were no longer tears of desperation or longing. They were tears of simple happiness.

 

He was Phil’s Omega now and always would be.

 

*

 

*

 

  
*

 

Phil was dreaming about his Omega.

 

It was a common misconception that bonding mostly affected the Omega’s body and changed the Alpha very little. The truth was that bonding was a series of chemical reactions that took place in both the Omega’s and Alpha’s bodies and left them both permanently changed. This didn't exactly mean that bonds were permanent. A bond could dissipate over time and distance. Couples who separated would eventually stop smelling like each other, and the mark on the Omega’s shoulder would fade until it disappeared entirely. Yet study after study had shown that the chemical byproducts of bonding remained in both the Alpha’s and Omega’s bloodstreams for the duration of their lives, affecting the chemistry of their bodies in subtle ways.

 

All that Phil was aware of, though, as he drifted off to sleep on his Omega’s chest was a sense that Dan was not only there in the bed beneath him but was slowly permeating his entire body so that before long his heart would be pumping Dan and his lungs breathing him out and the Omega would be as much a part of Phil as his own skin.

 

He was dreaming about the first time he had smelled the Omega’s scent.

 

Up until that moment, it had been one of the most exciting days of his life. He’d known for as long as he could remember that one day he would have an Omega companion of his own, just like his Alpha Father and his Alpha sister before him. Many of his friends at the Academy had already had companions of their own for years, but Phil’s Alpha, for some reason of his own, had put off buying an Omega for Phil for much longer than was usual.

 

But today was Phil’s eleventh birthday, and his Alpha Father had surprised him by telling him he thought it was time he had an Omega at last. His birthday gift that year was a trip to the auction house, a massive, granite building in the very heart of London with, in Phil’s opinion, far too many steps leading up to its imposing doors. He was impatient to be inside where he was sure his Omega must be waiting just as eagerly to meet him.

 

Once he and his Father had entered the auction house, the slave master had greeted them and shown them to a small, private browsing room. In the room there was a cushy chair pulled up to a varnished wooden table, and on top of the table was a strange looking device with an opening in the front and a few buttons on the side. Phil thought it almost looked like a modern descendent of a gramophone. The slave master showed Phil to the chair and told him he could use the device to smell the recorded scents of different Omegas for sale. As he tried each one, the slave master would note the ones he liked and then bring him the file with the Omega’s pictures and history to peruse.

 

Phil’s Alpha Father cautioned him that it was very likely he wouldn’t find the right Omega on the very first go. Everyone knew that, while any given Alpha could probably successfully mate with any given Omega, not every Alpha and Omega were compatible for bonding. Some studies indicated that an Alpha may only be compatible with as few as 12% of Omegas alive at any given time. Fortunately, nature had given Alphas and Omegas a very easy way to discover whether or not they were compatible: through their scents.

 

As Phil sat in front of the device and leaned forward to start testing out the different scents, the twelve percent rate started to seem all too accurate. None of the first ten he tried smelled any good, and the eleventh smelled downright repellant to him. It wasn’t until he reached the fourteenth that he found one that smelled generally pleasant to him, and the slave master carefully made note of the number on a clipboard. As he went on, he discovered that some of them smelled too much like his family members while others simply smelled uninteresting. By the time he reached the thirtieth Omega, he’d only come across two that he even remotely liked. He sighed and sat back in his chair after the thirty-first ended up smelling absolutely awful, and his Alpha Father suggested he stop for the day and come back again another time when there would be new stock.

 

“No, no,” Phil shook his head, sitting up straight again. “How many young Omegas do you have for sale today, Sir?” he asked the slave master.

 

“Forty-eight, Young Master,” the man replied promptly.

 

“That’s only eighteen more,” Phil told his Father. “I might as well try them all.”

 

Alpha Lester shrugged and gestured toward the slave master to continue.

 

The thirty-seventh Omega smelled promising. The scent reminded Phil of the forest after rain and fresh laundry and the pages of his favorite book. But all the other eleven left him feeling rather ho-hum.

 

“Shall I bring you No. 37’s file, then?” the slave master asked Alpha Lester, reaching for the device’s off switch without looking at it properly. He was too focused on his client to notice that he had hit the wrong button, the one to switch over to the next scent on file. Phil was still leaning near the device, though he was turned away to see what his Father would answer. It took a moment for the scent to reach his nostrils, but the moment it did, he whipped his head around to bury his nose in the small opening the scent was being released from.

 

“Yes, I suppose we might as well have a look,” Alpha Lester was saying as his son drew the new scent in with a deep breath.

 

As he breathed it in, images and impressions blossomed in his mind, of lazy summer holidays and the taste of the chocolate in his Christmas advent calendar and star-gazing in the countryside and a hundred other of his favorite memories.

 

“I want this Omega,” he said, pitching his voice loudly and firmly to get both the adults’ attention. “This one is mine.”

 

The slave master turned back toward him with a frown.

 

“Number forty-eight, Young Master? Pardon me, but I believe you said that one was too…” but the man trailed off as he caught sight of the device’s display. “Ah, I’m very sorry. This Omega is no longer available. He has been placed on reserve by another buyer.”

 

At the man’s words, something inside Phil drew very taut and cold. He stood, pushing back the chair, and though he wasn’t even as tall as the slave master’s shoulder, he looked the man dead in the eye and said in a clear, crisp voice, “The Omega is mine.”

 

He didn’t see the way his Alpha Father was looking at him just then. If he had, he may have faltered in his confidence, but he was too focused on communicating to the slave master that he would not, under any circumstances, be selling Phil’s Omega to another Alpha. The poor slave master stood with mouth agape and a look of complete consternation on his face.

 

“I’ll give you ten times whatever the other buyer has offered for him,” Alpha Lester’s voice broke the tension in the room at last.

 

The slave master closed his mouth and turned to look at the Alpha. He had met Alpha Lester on a few previous occasions, when he’d brought his elder Alpha child in to purchase her own Omega slave. It had taken three visits over the course of two months for her to at last find a suitable Omega. Alpha Lester had paid very handsomely for his daughter’s Omega of choice, but Omega Will hadn’t cost even a quarter as much as the Alpha had just offered.

 

Still, he knew the Lester family well by reputation. He had no doubt the Alpha could afford to pay £200,000 for a single Omega slave. He just wasn’t convinced the Alpha would think the slave worth it once he told him the price — not to mention, the other buyer was already here, waiting to be shown her prospective purchase. She would not be pleased if she learned that the Omega she had put on reserve had been shown to another potential buyer first.

 

The slave master swallowed hard, thinking as fast as he could. £200,000 was an extraordinary amount of money for a single slave. Even after giving the boy’s Alpha Mother her agreed 65%, that would leave him with £70,000, more than he’d made from the sale of an Omega slave in nearly a decade.

 

“I’m sure you understand, Alpha Lester,” the man said at last, “that it would be a severe breach of protocol to show you an Omega another buyer has reserved. I cannot in good conscience—“

 

“Very well then,” Alpha Lester interrupted him. “I’ll give you fifteen times what the other buyer is offering you, and if they take issue with the sudden change, you may direct them to me.”

 

The slave master stopped breathing for a moment. He had no idea why this Alpha seemed so bent on giving his son this particular Omega. Sure, it wasn’t every Omega that was a potential bonding partner for an Alpha, but there were enough out there that it wasn’t too much of a burden to just move on to the next. Nevertheless, in his years of catering to the needs of the Patrician class, the slave master had learned not to question their strange whims. He also knew better than to question the £105,000 he was about to earn.

 

“The Omega is being held in one of our viewing rooms,” he said to Alpha Lester once he’d regained the power of speech, and he inclined his head in a gesture of deference. “If the two of you will just follow me.”

 

Phil also didn’t know why his Father was going to such lengths to acquire the Omega for him. After all, Alpha Lester hadn’t smelled the Omega’s heavenly scent. He couldn’t possibly know how alluring the Omega truly was. But Phil was not about to question his Father’s actions either. He knew with a certainty that he had never felt about anything before that the Omega was his, and he was going to claim him one way or another.

 

As the slave master led the way out the door, Phil fell into step immediately behind him, leaving his Alpha to follow in his wake. Not even once did the thought occur to him that he should take a look at the Omega’s file, see what he looked like and what his history was before he decided for sure to buy him. Something deep within him that went far beyond rational thought had already made the decision for him.

 

When he stepped through the door the slave master held open for him and saw the thin, brown-haired boy standing on the platform with a fluffy blanket clutched tight round his shoulders, the only thought in his head was, _Wow! My Omega is even cuter than I’d expected!_

 

And he had smelled even more heavenly in person.

 

The Alpha’s lips twitched up into a smile as his sleeping mind took him back to that moment, to the tentative way his Omega’s eyes had met his and the unexpected roughness of his palm when he took his hand.

 

The Omega, who was very, very tired but not at all sleepy, was watching his Alpha’s face as he slept, and when he saw the little smile appear there, he was so overwhelmed with affection for him that he reached up a hand to run the back of it softly over his cheek. The Alpha nuzzled unconsciously into the caress, the movement causing the rest of his body to shift just enough that Dan felt his knot nudge up against the inside of him, sending a shiver of sensation rippling through his body. It was so strange to think how, even just two mornings ago he’d been embarrassed by his own lust for his Alpha, but now it seemed the most natural thing in the world to be lying here with Phil inside of him and his teeth marks on his shoulder.

 

“Hmmm,” the Alpha sighed, and Dan realized he was beginning to wake. He brushed his knuckles over the Alpha’s cheek again, grinning at the way he pushed his face against his fingers. The Alpha let out a louder sigh and then opened his mouth in a wide yawn. After a moment, he said in a grumbly voice, “My knot still hasn’t gone down.”

 

The Omega snorted out a little laugh.

 

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

 

“Hey!” Phil said, putting out his hands so that he could prop himself up enough to glare at his Omega in the eye, though the corners of his lips were clearly fighting a smile. “None of your cheek now. You’re speaking to your Alpha, you know.”

 

Dan just rolled his eyes, still grinning.

 

“My sincerest apologies, oh Great Alpha Phil—“ he began, but then the Alpha’s mouth twisted into a smirk and he gave a tiny thrust of his hips, and the Omega’s sentence ended in a short, breathless moan. “Fffff…” he breathed out. “Nope, your knot definitely has not gone down yet.”

 

The Alpha leaned down then to press his lips into the Omega’s, and he felt Dan’s lips curling up into a smile as they parted and his tongue slipped into Phil’s mouth.

 

They kissed for a long time, taking their time exploring each other’s mouths as they waited for the Alpha’s knot to subside enough to let him pull out. When they’d each become too breathless for further kissing, Phil laid his face against the Omega’s trembling chest and listened to his heart thudding inside while the Omega’s fingers dragged lazily through his Alpha’s hair.

 

It was another fifteen minutes or so before at last Phil was able to withdraw himself from inside the Omega’s body, moving slowly and carefully so as not to cause any pain to his sensitive opening, raw from heat and sex.

 

When he’d disposed of the condom and cleaned himself with a few tissues from his bedside table, he sat back down on the edge of the bed and stretched his tired muscles. Then he looked down at his Omega where he lay, looking utterly spent, against the stained sheets.

 

“I think I’m going to call the house slaves in to bring us lunch and clean up a bit,” he said, reaching out and interlocking the fingers of his left hand with the Omega’s where it lay beside him. “And while they’re here, I say you and I take a long, relaxing bath.”

 

He saw Dan’s eyes close and his head move a little in a tired nod.

 

“I’ll go draw the bath,” he murmured when he’d opened his eyes again, but when he started to get up, Phil let go of his hand and rested his palm against his chest.

 

“Dan,” he said, giving him a look, “you’re not going to do anything but lie there and wait until the bath is ready.”

 

The Omega frowned at that. There had been a couple of occasions over the past few days when Phil had refused to let him carry out his normal chores. He knew that their relationship was undergoing a change, as they went from being a Master and his slave who also happened to be friends, to also being mates who shared a bond. But Dan was still Phil’s slave, and it was still his duty to serve him. He felt uncomfortable letting the Alpha do things for him instead.

 

“I really don’t mind,” he tried to protest, but Phil’s hand stayed where it was.

 

“You’ve just been through a heat, Dan,” he told him. “You need to take it easy for a while so that your body can recover. Besides,” he added, lifting his nose in the air in a lofty manner, “as your Alpha, it is my right and my privilege to take care of you when you need it.”

 

He bent and dropped a kiss on the Omega’s forehead, and before Dan could make any further objection, he’d hopped off the bed and headed over to the intercom near the door.

 

Dan had no choice but to lie there, frowning up at the ceiling while the Alpha spoke to one of the house slaves over the intercom and then disappeared into the bathroom. He could hear the water running and Phil padding about on the tiles of the bathroom floor in his bare feet. He liked what he’d said, that as his Alpha it was his right to take care of him, but it still felt all wrong. Dan was just a poor slave boy from a slum. He didn’t deserve to have anyone at all waiting on him, but most especially not Phil.

 

The fact of the matter was that, no matter how he might tease Phil, deep down he really did think the Alpha was better than he was. They could joke and argue and have sex and even bond, but Dan never for one moment forgot that Phil was a member of the nobility. Everyone knew that the nobility were better than regular people. Why else would they be in charge?

 

“Are you ready for your bath?” Phil’s voice brought his thoughts back to the present moment.

 

“Oh, yes, please,” he responded, struggling to push himself up off the bed. His arms wobbled with exhaustion as he tried to support his weight on them, and he would have fallen over if Phil hadn’t been there to catch him. “I’m sor—“ The apology was only half out of his mouth when the Alpha’s arms slid under him and he was being lifted from the bed and tucked against his Alpha’s chest.

 

“I told you you needed to take it easy,” Phil muttered as he clutched him close and started to carry him across the room. Despite being older and an Alpha, he wasn’t that much taller than Dan, who was already a little tall for an Omega. It took far more effort than he’d anticipated to carry the Omega all the way to the bathroom, but he grit his teeth and pressed on, not setting him down until he’d brought him to the tub full of hot water and bubbles and lowered him slowly into the water.

 

The Omega, for his part, bit his lips and held in all of the apologies that wanted to spill out. He couldn’t stop the sigh of relief that slipped out as the soothing water of the bath met his raw, sticky skin. He was on the verge of collapsing back against the end of the tub when he felt the Alpha climb in behind him, leaning against the cold ceramic himself and pulling the Omega in to rest against his chest.

 

Dan closed his eyes and gave in, letting his troubled thoughts slip away as he focused on the warmth of the water and the comforting heat of his Alpha’s skin and the slow rise and fall of his chest against his back. He didn’t even realize until he came awake again sometime later that he’d actually fallen asleep. When he woke, he felt the Alpha’s lips on his shoulder, pressing light, soothing kisses against the tender bite mark there.

 

“You’ll probably want to sleep for most of the rest of the day,” Phil murmured once he realized the Omega was awake again. “Your body burnt up a lot of energy during your heat.”

 

He nodded his head groggily. He didn’t know how long he’d been out, but he was still feeling very sleepy.

 

“I think they’re almost done next door. Let’s finish washing up, and then you can have your lunch and get back to sleep again.”

 

Dan nodded, frowning just a bit.

 

“Will you stay with me, Alpha?” he asked, leaning his head back enough to let him see the other boy’s face out of the corner of his eye.

 

“Of course,” the Alpha said at once, lowering his lips to place another gentle kiss against his shoulder.

 

The Omega drew in a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh of contentment. He lacked the energy to object to being taken care of any further. All he could do was lie there drifting in and out of sleep while the Alpha ran a soapy washcloth over his body to wipe away the last remaining traces of the sweat and slick and dried on blood that clung to his skin. When he was all clean, the Alpha lifted him out and set him on the fluffy bath mat and patted him dry before wrapping him in a second towel straight from the warming rack. When the Alpha was dry himself, he carried the Omega back to the other room, to the table where he set him down and helped him eat the lunch that he was suddenly ravenous for, but to weak to feed to himself.

 

When he no longer even had enough energy to chew and swallow, the Alpha helped him drink some water and then carried him back to the bed, now covered in fresh sheets and a clean duvet that was still warm from the dryer. The Alpha tucked him in and then crawled in beside him, wrapping his arms around the Omega’s waist and resting his face near enough to his neck to breathe in his newly-bonded scent. He was still a little tired himself, after all of his exertions and missing so much sleep lately, and there was something so relaxing about Dan’s bonded scent.

 

The Omega, for his part, didn’t fall back into sleep again immediately. Instead he lay there, feeling the Alpha’s hot breath on the back of his neck and his palms resting against his stomach.

 

“I used to be afraid of bonding,” he murmured after a while, “when I was really little. I was terrified at the thought that someday I would belong to an Alpha, that someday there would be someone else who was my whole world.” He paused, hearing the way the Alpha’s breath had slowed and deepened. “When I met you I stopped being scared,” he said, before closing his eyes and cuddling closer against the Alpha’s body. He knew he was asleep and hadn’t heard a word that Dan had said, but that was okay. For Dan, it was enough that he’d finally had a chance to say it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apparently can't stop writing this story. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter!


	5. The Beta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil and Dan have been bonded for several years when someone new appears to shake up the status quo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My sincere apologies for making you all wait so long. This chapter starts the second phase of the story of Alpha!Phil and Omega!Dan's relationship. I hope you all enjoy it!

The Omega was sat at his desk, computer in front of him with several tabs open in Firefox. The current tab was displaying his Twitter timeline. Many of his Omega friends had been forbidden by their Alphas from creating social media profiles. The Alphas were all nervous of the fact that their Omegas could be contacted anonymously by unknown Alphas over the internet. Dan’s Alpha wasn’t like that, thankfully, though he had warned Dan to be careful. After discussing it, they had both thought it best for him to remain anonymous on his profile and to not reveal his designation. This was as much for his own safety as it was for Alpha Phil’s privacy. His family was well known, and any private information about the family, no matter how innocuous it seemed, might be turned against them by those who wished them ill.

At the moment, though, the Omega was paying no attention whatsoever to the stream of tweets on the screen before him.

Instead, his face was half turned away from the computer screen and his head cocked a little to one side, the tension in his expression and the line of his body making it clear that he was straining to hear something happening in the room next door.

The room his desk and computer sat in was his own private one. Besides those two items, it held a couch, a tv, a book shelf, and a cushy armchair that stood to one side of a small fireplace. There was no bed, of course, because he slept in his Alpha’s bed, in the bedroom that they shared. When Phil had left London to attend university in York three years earlier, his Alpha Father had rented a flat there for the young Alpha to share with his Omega. One of Phil’s only stipulations about the layout of the flat was that he and Dan each be able to have their own private spaces. While it had been easy to share a room as children, after they’d bonded they had both learned the value of time and space to themselves in order to keep their relationship happy and healthy.

Dan’s Alpha had also told him, privately, on their first night in their flat, that he specifically wanted Dan to have a space all his own. He’d explained that he wanted the Omega to feel that the flat was really his home, rather than simply somewhere Phil allowed him to stay.

“I don’t want you to think you have to always be at my beck and call,” Phil had said as they’d sat on the couch in the lounge side by side and shared an evening cup of tea. “If you go in your room and close your door, I’ll leave you alone until you want me. And I’ll knock if I need to talk to you about anything.”

The Omega had been inclined to argue about this at first. He was Phil’s slave, after all. Phil owned his body and his life. Of course he should be at his master’s beck and call. But the Alpha had insisted, and Dan had to admit that the idea had grown on him — a room of his own. It was something he’d never had in his life before then. In the tiny house he’d grown up in, occupied by seven other people, there hadn’t been a single space that hadn’t been shared by at least two or three people. Once he’d been sold to the Lester family, he’d always shared Phil’s room, keeping his clothes in Phil’s wardrobe, taking his baths in Phil’s bathtub, and sleeping on the floor beside Phil’s bed (until they’d bonded and started sleeping together, of course).

It had taken a few months for Dan to really warm to the idea of “his” room. But then one day he’d been in town with Phil, and they’d passed the window of a furniture store, and he’d seen this weird chair on display that was white and had a seat shaped like a human butt, and after he’d stared at it for a long time, Phil had finally asked if he wanted to buy it. It took some wheedling, but finally the Omega had let the Alpha buy it for him and by mid-afternoon it had replaced the original desk chair in his room. That had seemed to trigger some innate decorating instinct within Dan, and before long he was almost begging Phil to take him shopping for more furniture and decorations for his room.

Three years later, and Dan’s room had been transformed into a comfortable, cluttered manifestation of his personality. It was his favorite place to be when Phil was gone from the flat. It was the only place where he didn’t feel the Alpha’s absence.

Except for right now, as he sat in his butt chair, having completely forgotten the computer screen in front of him and listened carefully to the energetic conversation and occasional ripples of laughter that seeped through the wall from the lounge next door.

They’d been in there for nearly two hours now, Phil and the Beta. The Beta’s name was Ellis, and he had jet-black hair, a posh accent, and a massive crush on Dan’s Alpha. Except Dan was pretty sure Phil hadn’t noticed that last bit yet.

It was something the two of them had never really discussed before — whether the Alpha would take other lovers or not. No Omega in Dan’s position could rightly expect his Alpha to stay faithful. Dan’s only purpose was to serve the Alpha and bear him children, and it was a given that someday the Alpha would marry someone of his own class, someone who could be a true equal and companion to him. Dan knew all of this, and yet in the five years since they’d first bonded, Phil had never once so much as flirted with anyone else. Dan knew he couldn’t expect him to remain faithful, and yet he had for all this time.

And then the Beta had appeared. At the start of Phil’s third year of uni, he’d brought home a new classmate he’d hit it off with. He’d already gone out for drinks or coffee with Ellis a couple of times after class, and each time the Alpha had come home to Dan and go on and on about how funny and clever and interesting the Beta was, promising he would bring him home for Dan to meet as soon as he could. At first the Omega had felt a pang of jealousy. He could tell Phil really liked this boy, more than anyone he’d ever heard Phil talk about before. Then he’d brought Ellis home, and Dan had seen the way the Beta gazed at his Alpha, with wide eyes sparkling with warmth. He’d seen the way the two of them got lost in convoluted conversations related to whatever it was they were studying in their shared class. He’d heard the way they laughed at each other’s jokes, full, deep un-self-conscious laughs. And his jealousy had turned to worry.

What if Phil started liking the Beta more than he liked his Omega? What if he started wanting to spend all his time with Ellis now instead of Dan? What if Dan ended up being left at home every night, just him in his room, falling asleep on the couch because he couldn’t fall asleep in their bed alone?

That had been in October. It was now December, and both Dan’s jealousy and his worrying had long passed. Phil had begun to spend more time with Ellis, and Dan had ended up spending more time alone as a result. Yet, there never came a night when Phil didn’t show up promptly at their flat before dinner time. Sometimes he showed up with Ellis in tow. Yet, no matter how many times Phil brought the Beta home, no matter how late into the night they stayed up laughing together, there always came a time when he sent him away and pulled his Omega into his arms and snuggled him to sleep. To Dan’s dawning surprise, he had come to realize that Phil hadn’t the slightest clue that his new friend was falling in love with him.

Dan’s worrying had long passed and had now turned to calculating. The semester was ending, and soon Phil and Ellis would cease to be classmates. The Beta would no longer have easy excuses to pop out for a drink with the Alpha after class or to follow him home for a study session. It would be only too easy for the relationship to fizzle out in the following weeks, snuffed by the madness of finals and the Christmas holidays.

This was what the Omega was thinking as he sat in front of his desk and listened to the sounds of Ellis gathering up his books and preparing to leave.

A loud knock at the door to his room startled Dan out of his listening trance, and he gave a small jump of surprise before standing from his chair and walking over to answer it.

On the other side of the door stood the Beta, flushed cheeks spread wide in a grin, eyes glittering with happiness. He looked so in love, Dan couldn’t help smiling and shaking his head just a bit. Phil was so blind.

“Just wanted to bid you good night before I headed out,” Ellis said, sticking out a hand for the Omega to shake. “Sorry for kicking you out of your own lounge for so long!”

“No worries,” Dan said, shaking the Beta’s hand for a moment. “I know you two have finals coming up.”

Ellis groaned and rolled his eyes in response to that.

“Don’t remind me. Please.” He sounded pained, and that made Dan chuckle. He knew very well that Ellis was quite brilliant in academics and would have no trouble passing all of his exams with flying colors. He just enjoyed being dramatic.

“You’ll both be fine, I’m sure.”

“Thanks, mate,” Ellis grinned. “And thanks again for loaning me your Alpha for the evening.” And then he offered Dan a wink that almost made the Omega blush. He wasn’t sure if Ellis knew that he’d caught on to how much the Beta wanted Phil, but it wasn’t like Ellis made a big secret of it.

“It’s my pleasure,” Dan replied, dropping his eyes to the floor and offering the Beta only the coyest of smiles.

When he glanced up again, Ellis was gazing at him strangely, but then he shook his head and his grin returned.

“Anyway, good night! I’ll see you around sometime I’m sure,” the Beta said, starting to turn away.

“Of course,” Dan called after him, deepening his own smile again. “Good night!”

When he’d heard the Beta make his good-byes to Phil and the door close behind him, Dan wandered back out into the lounge again at last.

Phil was bent over the coffee table in front of the couch, gathering up his own books and supplies. When he heard Dan come in, he looked up and shot him a tired smile.

“I think my finals this semester might finally kill me,” he muttered, shoving his stuff into his book bag and then pushing it off to one side of the couch. Then he plopped down and motioned toward the empty space beside him with his head. “Come here and help me forget about economics for a while.”

The Omega grinned, slowing his walk to a seductive stroll before coming to a stop in front of the Alpha and gazing down at him with a wicked smile.

“And how can I help you with that, Alpha?” he murmured.

The Alpha pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes, slowly raking his gaze up and down the Omega’s body. He let his eyes come to rest on Dan’s face again and then raised one hand and crooked his finger, beckoning him closer.

Dan obliged by leaning down until his face was just inches from Phil’s, and he could see the Alpha straining forward, expecting a kiss, but Dan just reached his hands out, placing one on the back of the couch on Phil’s left side and the other on the back of the couch on his right side. Then he placed first one knee on the couch and then the other, until at last he was crouched just above Phil’s lap, straddling him with a knee on either side.

“That’s a good start,” the Alpha breathed, tilting his head back so that he could meet his Omega’s eyes again. The Omega had only grown taller over the years, and for a while now, he’d stood nearly as tall as Phil. “Kiss me,” the Alpha murmured, so the Omega obliged, bringing his face down to the Alpha’s at last and raising one hand to cup his cheek.

He heard the Alpha sigh as he relaxed into the kiss, so he raised his other hand from the back of the couch, shifting all of his weight onto his knees, and brushed his fingers through the Alpha’s hair. He heard Phil sigh again and knew he must be very tired today.

They kissed for a few minutes more, lazy, comfortable kisses that made them both begin to grow drowsy. At last, Dan sat back on the Alpha’s lap, hands still holding his face, and he searched his eyes to try to understand what he was thinking. Would now be a good time to bring it up? It was still a little early to be bed time, tired as Phil seemed to be. In this busy season, there were precious few free moments. He shouldn’t waste this one.

“What’s wrong?” Phil asked, mirroring the frown that had crept onto Dan’s face without him knowing. “You look like something’s bothering you.”

Dan shook his head.

“It’s not that. It’s just…” He paused, consciously making an effort to smooth his expression out. “You like Beta Ellis a lot, don’t you?”

The Alpha’s eyes grew wide and he blinked a few times in bewilderment before his eyebrows suddenly snapped together.

“If you’re worried that I’m going to cheat on you—“

“No, no, that’s not it,” Dan hurried to explain. “Besides, it wouldn’t really be cheating. I’m not your boyfriend or your husband or anything like that.” He saw Phil open his mouth, a protest already forming on his lips, so he hurried on, “I think Beta Ellis is in love with you, Alpha.”

The lines in the Alpha’s forehead deepened.

“What makes you say that?” he asked, sounding truly puzzled. Dan rolled his eyes.

“He isn’t subtle about it at all,” he said, reaching up to run the fingers of his left hand through the hair at the side of Phil’s head. “He’s constantly flirting with you. And the way he looks at you, with his eyes sparkling and his cheeks all pink… Anyone but you would see it, Phil.” This last he said through a breath of laughter. Over the years it had become easier for him to call his Master by his name, though he still refused to do so in front of anyone else.

Phil kept frowning, and his gaze drifted up toward the ceiling. Dan could almost seeing him playing back the evening he’d just spent with Ellis. He watched the entire unfolding of the realization in the Alpha’s eyes.

At last Phil let his eyes meet Dan’s again.

“Wow, how did I never notice before?”

Dan just shook his head and leaned in to brush a light kiss across the Alpha’s lips. When he’d pulled back again, he said, as gently as he could, “You’re a little bit in love with him, too.”

Phil’s frown turned into a dismissive smirk almost at once.

“No, I’m not,” he scoffed. “I’m in love with you.”

“You are in love with me,” Dan agreed, stroking his fingers through the Alpha’s hair more softly than ever. “And you’re in love with him, too.”

“Really, Dan, I’m not—“

“I don’t blame you,” the Omega cut him off, his voice remaining low and steady. “He’s a wonderful person. I like him a lot, too.” He felt the Alpha’s arms come up around his back then, hugging him a little closer. He wondered if the Alpha even realized he was doing so, or if it was merely the result of some subconscious possessive instinct. “You could do a lot worse,” Dan said, and then added, “We could do a lot worse.”

Phil’s jaw almost dropped open at that. He stilled completely under his Omega’s hands, staring at him with utter bewilderment.

“What are you suggesting, Dan?” he finally managed to get out.

“I’m suggesting,” Dan began, dropping his hands down to the Alpha’s shoulders, “that you think about dating Beta Ellis.”

Phil just kept staring at him, so Dan continued.

“We both know you must marry someday, Phil. Your Alpha Father may be starting to search for suitable candidates even now. I know,” and he had to pause for a moment as a tight feeling in his throat threatened to choke off his words. The Alpha’s hands on his back moved a little, rubbing, reassuring. “I know you can’t be only mine forever, Alpha.”

“I can try,” the Alpha whispered in response. “I can try with everything I have.”

Dan couldn’t stand to see the pained expression on his Alpha’s face any longer, so he tipped his head forward, laying his head against the Alpha’s shoulder.

“You won’t go against your Alpha,” he murmured, “nor should you. I would never ask you to.”

He felt Phil’s hands moving again, stroking over his back and then closing around him, cradling him to his chest. Life would be hard for them both if Phil decided to defy Alpha Lester’s orders. He would be cut off from the family, made an outcast among all those he had ever known. It wasn’t that he would shy away from getting a job to support them on his own. It was that he would find it very difficult to get a job. Society had little sympathy for wealthy Alphas who defied social conventions for the sake of Omega slaves.

“I don’t want you to bond with another Omega,” Dan whispered, unable to keep emotion from roughening his voice now. “I don’t want to smell another Omega on you. I don’t want to see another Omega bear your children. I couldn’t stand it, Alpha. I couldn’t.” He was crying now, tears sliding down his cheeks to pool in a wet patch on the shoulder of Phil’s jumper.

“I know,” he heard the Alpha reply. “I don’t think I could stand it either.”

They sat in silence for a while, holding each other, cherishing what they had now, this fragile peace that they had both spent so long pretending wasn’t temporary.

“That’s why I think you should consider Beta Ellis,” Dan murmured at last. “I think we could be happy with him, both of us.” He paused. “And you wouldn’t have to bond with him.”

“Oh,” Phil said. He had at last come to understand what exactly it was that Dan was suggesting. Ellis was, in fact, from a very good family. They were, perhaps, not quite as prominent as Phil’s, but certainly not a family that the Lesters would be embarrassed to be allied with. For him, as a second Alpha, that’s what his marriage would really come down to — a strategic alliance with a prominent family. Alpha-Beta marriages were rare, but they weren’t entirely unheard of. In fact, Phil’s own eldest Beta brother had fallen in love with and married an Alpha named Corrie. In their case, her family had only been willing to allow their Alpha daughter to wed a Beta male who was incapable of bearing her children because she already had an Omega slave to give her heirs. Alpha Lester had given his consent to Martyn’s marriage. Maybe he would let Phil marry a Beta as well…

But Ellis?

Phil had honestly never stopped to consider the Beta as a potential romantic partner before, much less a prospective husband. Could Dan be right? Had he really developed feelings for his classmate? He could hardly believe it, except that he had noticed, occasionally, that sometimes when Ellis laughed a certain way, or the sunlight caught his hair at just the right angle, or he teased Phil about his utter detestation of the study of economics, Phil felt this sort of nudge of warmth in the pit of his stomach. He’d always just labeled it fondness and left it at that. After all, he was fond of lots of people he wasn’t the least bit interested in dating. But Ellis…

He placed his hands on Dan’s shoulders and gently lifted him away so that he could look into his eyes as he spoke.

“Is this really what you want, Dan?” he asked, searching the Omega’s tear-stained face. He could smell the fear and uncertainty in him. He wasn’t convinced Dan would really be fine with him having a romantic relationship with someone else. “I honestly have never imagined myself being with anyone but you.”

The Omega gazed down at his Alpha, his perfect, wonderful Alpha who was too good for him ever to deserve.

“Thank you, Alpha,” he said. “And, yes, I really do want this. I want to try having Beta Ellis in our lives, and maybe, if it works out, he can stay with us forever.”

Phil chewed at his lip for a moment, mulling it over. Now that Dan had started him thinking about it, he couldn’t help imagining what it would feel like to have the Beta in his arms, or in his bed… He felt his neck flush at the thought.

When he looked back up at Dan, the Omega’s lips were curled up in a smirk.

“You want him,” he murmured. “I can feel it radiating from you.”

The Alpha blushed and ducked his head.

“What if I told you that I want him too?” the Omega murmured, and the Alpha’s eyes jerked back up to his at once. The Omega was biting his lips, apprehension heavy on his face.

“You do?” Phil managed to say after a moment, once the initial spike of Alpha possessiveness had passed. 

Dan nodded, the smirk peeking out at the corners of his lips again. Then he leaned down and whispered in the Alpha’s ear, “I want to watch you fuck him until he screams your name. And then I want you to watch him do the same to me.”

When he leant back again, the Alpha’s eyes were glazed over, and he knew that he was imagining it.

“Fuck…” he heard Phil breathe. When their eyes met again at last, he knew he had convinced him. He couldn’t stop himself leaning forward then and capturing the Alpha’s lips with his own. This time the kisses were full of heat and passion, and after a few moments, the Omega found himself pressing his hips down against the hardened bulge in the front of the Alpha’s jeans as they both moaned and panted for breath.

“I love it when you talk like the little slut I know you are,” Phil groaned into his Omega’s ear as he reached his hands around and gripped his buttocks hard, reveling in the gasp of pleasure this wrenched from the Omega’s lips. “Can’t wait to watch you moaning and sweating while another man fucks your hungry little hole open.”

“Mmm,” Dan moaned in appreciation of the image, reaching down to unbutton the Alpha’s flies and slipping his hand inside his boxers. “But I won’t let him come inside,” he leaned forward and murmured into the other’s ear. “Only my Alpha gets to come inside me.”

Phil growled his agreement of that as the Omega’s fingers slipped around his erect cock and began squeezing firmly up and down its length.

“Wanna come inside you right now,” the Alpha gritted out, reaching for the hem of the Omega’s shirt and pulling at it until the Omega obligingly lifted his arms and let the shirt be yanked over his head. His jeans were next, and then the Alpha had bent him over with knees planted on the couch, his face pressed against a cushion and his ass in the air.

The Omega whimpered, feeling his cock straining against the front of his boxers at the way the Alpha gripped his hips so possessively. He heard the hasty shuffling sounds of Phil shimmying out of his own jeans and boxers, and then he felt the hands again, yanking his underwear down to his knees and leaving them there. A moment later there was a finger pressing against his entrance, slicked up with lube, and then he felt the Alpha bending over him, dropping kisses up his back as he slipped the finger slowly inside.

Dan had to suppress a frustrated sigh. He always hated this part. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the feeling of his Alpha’s fingers sliding inside and stretching him open. In fact, it was one of the most deliciously dirty things he’d ever experienced. It was just that he was always so impatient to feel his Alpha’s cock moving inside him. He wished it could always be like it was during heat, when his body seemed to stay permanently ready to be penetrated.

He felt a third finger push inside along with the others and gasped a little at the stretch. Phil was being cautious, keeping a slow and steady rhythm to avoid causing his Omega any pain, and Dan had to bite his lips and squeeze his eyes shut to keep from begging him to hurry it up. He knew it would be no use. 

“Please.” The word escaped from between his lips before he’d even known it was forming there.

“Anything you ask,” he heard the Alpha pant, and the fingers slid out from inside him, and a moment later he felt the rounded head of the Alpha’s massive cock pressing against him, pushing easily past his well-stretched rim. He groaned at the feeling of it straining against his inner walls, spreading him even further open, filling him until it was just verging on unbearable.

He drew in a deep shuddering breath, trying to keep his breathing steady, in and out, as the Alpha pushed the last little way in.

“Fuck,” he breathed, letting his eyelid flutter open just enough to for him to be able to catch sight of Phil from the corner of his eye, bent over him, expression lost in bliss. Just the sight of his face sent a little thrill of excitement through the Omega’s abdomen, and then he felt a palm running up the inside of his thigh until the fingers reached that place just behind the Omega’s balls, where they lingered for a moment before beginning to rub slowly against it. “Oh, fuck, Phil,” he cried at the jolt of electricity this sent shooting up inside of him.

“Yes, Omega?” he heard the Alpha’s teasing voice.

He let out a wordless whine, letting his eyelid squeeze shut again as the Alpha slowly dragged his cock out, letting the Omega feel every agonizing inch of it before pushing smoothly back in.

“Harder,” he whimpered out then, and with a sound halfway between a sigh and a groan, the Alpha obliged, pulling himself out and shoving back in with greater force now that the Omega’s hole was relaxed and open for him.

Dan placed his palms against the couch and pushed himself up, wanting more leverage to be able to push himself back onto his lover’s cock, meeting his next thrust with a soft slap of skin against skin. He sensed the Alpha bending closer then, pressing his lips against the silky skin of the Omega’s back and then running his lips further up, close to his spine, the soft fuzz at the back of his neck, and then over to his shoulder where the bright red bonding mark spilled like a stain down the golden skin.

“Bite me,” the Omega begged as he felt the Alpha’s palm pressing in between his legs and his pulsing member sliding deep inside him.

Without a word, the Alpha’s lips parted, allowing his teeth to graze lightly over the stained skin of the Omega’s shoulder. Even that slight pressure was enough to send a dizzying wave of pleasure rushing to the Omega’s head and down his abdomen to join the glowing warmth between his thighs. A moment later, the Alpha’s teeth opened and then clamped down gently, ever so gently, squeezing just enough to hurt, just enough to give Dan that delicious pain he craved. A sensation like a tiny shockwave of electric pleasure flashed across his skin as the Alpha pulled out and slammed back into him with more force than ever, and he came almost without realizing it, his whole body alight with ecstasy as his member pumped cum onto the leather of the couch below him.

A moment later he felt the Alpha’s cock pulsing and twitching inside him before he felt the hot cum spurting out against his inner walls, coating them in sticky seed that the head of the Alpha’s cock kept pushing deeper and deeper inside him. He relished the feeling, imagining for the briefest of seconds that this was his heat and his Alpha was breeding him, filling him with seed that his knot would lock inside his body, ensuring that his sperm had enough time to find its way to the Omega’s womb.

Then the Alpha pulled out, and Dan felt his cum beginning to follow, sliding down inside him until it began to slowly drip from his stretched out hole.

“You look so beautiful like that, Omega,” he heard Phil growl from behind him as the hot sticky substance leaked down the backs of his thighs. “I love watching my cum dripping out from inside of you.”

Dan whined, clenching his hole shut tight, wishing that was enough to keep his Alpha’s cum inside.

“I’d rather keep it,” he murmured, resting his hot forehead on the cool leather of the couch. “I like having your cum inside me.”

“I know,” Phil replied, reaching down and running his hands soothingly over the Omega’s back. “Someday, we’ll do this the proper way.”

Later, when they’d cleaned up and were lying snuggled in their shared bed, Dan couldn’t help remembering Phil’s words and the strange yearning they called up within him. Back when they had first bonded, Dan had been so young that the idea of pregnancy and parenthood had been too daunting to entice him. Of course, his heat had still made him beg to be bred, but once that had passed, he was only too grateful that his Alpha hadn’t given in. But now… It wasn’t only during heat that he felt himself longing to have the Alpha’s baby growing inside him.

There were those who would wave a dismissive hand at this and say it was simply in his nature as an Omega to want to bear his Alpha’s children, but while Dan might have agreed with such sentiments as a child, now that he was a little older and had seen a little more of the world, he wasn’t so inclined to agree. He knew plenty of Omegas his own age, or even older, who were bonded to Alphas and yet were as terrified of getting pregnant as he used to be. Hearing the way they talked about their Alphas, he couldn’t blame them. Who would want to bring new little lives into a household ruled by fear?

But Phil was different. Phil was good to him. Phil loved him. And he knew Phil wanted Dan to bear his children as much as Dan wanted to carry them. He’d used to wonder what kind of parent his Alpha would make, but their last five years together had cleared any doubts he may have once had. Phil was so full of love and gentleness for his Omega, there was no doubt in Dan’s mind he would treat their children the same way.

He curled himself more closely against Phil’s side, drawing a deep breath of his Alpha’s comforting scent. For now, Dan was on birth control, and Phil always wore a condom during his heats, just to be safe. It would be years yet before they would be able to start their family. Phil would have to finish university first, and settle himself in his career. And even then, Dan probably wouldn’t be allowed to get pregnant until after Phil had married and, assuming he married someone capable of bearing children, given his new spouse a child or two. Just the thought of it made Dan almost want to scream in frustration. It was like his whole body was aching to be pregnant with Phil’s children now. He buried his nose against the Alpha’s neck, listening to the soft whine of protest the other gave as his sleep was slightly disturbed. He didn’t know how much longer he could stand this.


	6. The Proposition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan and Phil make a proposition to their new friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who's read and/or commented. :D

It had taken them a while to settle into bonded life.

When Dan had first woken up the morning after they’d bonded to find that his Alpha had left for the Academy without him, he’d been inconsolable. Omega Kat had been there, waiting for him to wake, and she’d held him and shushed him and, once he’d calmed down, explained that Phil’s Alpha Father had ordered him to go. After the Omega’s heat, he had needed rest, but Alpha Lester hadn’t wanted his son to miss any more of his lectures.

The Alpha had returned home to find his Omega in his Mother’s quarters, helping his youngest brother and sister make animals out of colorful clay. It was an activity Omega Kat had suggested Dan join them in once he’d pulled himself together enough to get out of bed and dress. He’d rushed into the Alpha’s arms as soon as he’d walked through the door, and the moment they’d been alone again, they’d kissed and held each other like two people who had been parted for years rather than mere hours… But that was all they’d done. After a while, Phil had said he had homework to do and the Omega had left him to it.

Dan hadn’t worried about it in the moment. He’d been too caught up in the joy of being with his Alpha again, and just after his strenuous heat, he wasn’t really up for anything more anyway. It wasn’t until a couple of days later that Dan began to wonder if Phil had been intentionally avoiding contact with him. Phil had accompanied the Omega to his post-bonding doctor’s appointment, and after the examination was finished, Phil had startled Dan by asking Dr. Eze, their Omega specialist, whether it was safe for them to have sex when the Omega wasn’t in heat. 

It had taken all of his willpower not to stare at the Alpha open-mouthed. They’d been sleeping in the same bed, but now it occurred to Dan that they’d mostly been staying on their own sides, and he remembered that his Alpha had gotten irritated when he’d tried to help him with his homework the night before. Maybe now that they were bonded, he thought, Phil would only want to touch him during his heats. After all, it wasn’t like they’d touched each other all that often in the years before they’d bonded…

It hadn’t helped that Dr. Eze had explained in very matter-of-fact tones all of the potential dangers of non-heat penetrative sex, as she called it. She’d explained that biologically male Omegas were more prone to serious injury or infection due to rough handling during sex and that if they weren’t careful, it could even lead to infertility or death.

Phil had barely touched him for a month after that. When they were in bed beside each other, the Alpha would keep strictly to his own side and refused to allow the Omega to either dress or undress him. The most he would allow himself was the occasional quick embrace and chaste kiss on the cheek. Dan hoped that his Alpha was just trying to protect him, but he couldn’t help feeling that his worst fears were being realized. Rather than bringing them closer, bonding had actually driven them further apart.

Thank goodness Sophie and Will had still been living with them then. At last, frustrated to the point of tears, Dan had gone to the older Omega and poured all his worries into their sympathetic ear. They had nodded their head sagely and suggested that he tackle the problem head on.

Dan and his Alpha both still remembered the following night fondly.

Dan had showered and put on his pajamas while Phil was still working on an essay, but as soon as the Alpha had locked himself in the bathroom for his own bath — another task Dan was no longer allowed to help with — the Omega had stripped down and laid himself out on his stomach on the thick rug in front of the fireplace. 

The very first thing the Alpha had seen after stepping out of the bathroom was the Omega’s smooth, round bottom lit by flickering golden firelight. The second thing he’d seen was the vivid scarlet stain splashed down his left shoulder — his bonding mark. 

For weeks now, he’d been avoiding looking at the Omega when he was dressing or undressing, afraid that if he saw his mate’s beautiful body, he wouldn’t be able to control his desires. He hadn’t even thought to ask to see the new mark he’d left on the Omega’s shoulder. Looking at it now, he was shocked by how bright a red it was.

As his classes at the Academy had taught him, a bonding mark wasn’t, in fact, a bite mark. The wounds from the Alpha’s teeth had been shallow and had healed very quickly. The mark left behind was actually a sort of chemical stain, a visible remnant of the rush of hormones released by their bonding. The marks were often dark at first, brick red or even purplish, and only grew lighter and brighter over time as the pair strengthened their bond.

While Phil was thinking this, the Omega had turned his head and met the Alpha’s eyes over his shoulder.

“Dr. Eze said that to keep our bond strong, you need to regularly stimulate my bonding gland,” the Omega had murmured. “Please, Alpha, can you do that for me now?”

Phil had shaken his head at first. His whole body had been urging him forward, as though the mark on the Omega’s shoulder had some sort of magnetic property. Yet his mind had been urging the opposite — turn around, don’t look, order the Omega to get dressed.

“I can’t,” he’d choked out. “I- I don’t want to hurt you.”

The Omega had smiled softly.

“Touching my bonding mark won’t hurt me,” he’d stated, his voice calm and reassuring. “I’ve heard from other Omegas that the opposite is true.”

Phil had swallowed hard as the Omega’s eyes glinted up at him.

“Please, Alpha, make me feel good,” he’d murmured.

The Alpha’s heart had been beating in his chest, and his hands were almost shaking with the effort of holding himself back. He knew what Dan had said was true. They needed to touch each other sometimes to keep their bond strong, and the longer he fought it, the stronger the urge would grow, unless he sent the Omega away entirely. He definitely didn’t want to do that. 

He’d taken a step forward and stopped.

“I…” He’d paused, taken a deep breath. “I’m scared, Dan.”

The Omega had sat up then, straightening his back and keeping his eyes locked on the Alpha’s.

“What are you scared of?” he’d asked, his voice still soft and calm.

“What if I hurt you?” the Alpha had whispered, his forehead wrinkling up and his breath coming in shallow pants. “What if I get carried away and you get hurt or…or worse? I can’t lose you, Dan.”

The Omega’s eyes had grown very solemn then.

“You are going to lose me someday, and I’m going to lose you too. You can’t protect me from everything, Alpha.” He’d paused, and the Alpha could see that his eyes were shining a little too brightly. “I don’t think we should be completely reckless, but… I don’t want to waste the time we have together worrying about things that can’t be changed.”

Phil had stood and stared at him for a long time, thinking over what he was saying. He was right that he couldn’t protect him from everything, no matter what his Alpha instincts said to the contrary. He didn’t even think it would be right to try. He knew there were some Alphas who wouldn’t let their Omegas so much as leave the house because they were so worried about something happening to them. Was he turning into that sort of Alpha? 

He’d taken another step toward his Omega and had seen a smile spring to the other’s lips. Never breaking eye contact, the Omega had lowered himself onto his stomach again, face turned to peer at the Alpha over his shoulder.

“Please, Alpha,” he’d murmured again, and that was what finally broke through the last of the Alpha’s resistance.

In a rush of steps, he had made his way over to the Omega’s side, kneeling down on the plush rug beside him and taking his mate’s face between his palms. A moment later he was kissing him all over his face, his lips, his cheeks, the tip of his nose, his forehead, his jaw…the pulse point beneath his ear, down his neck as the Omega moaned softly in his throat, and then, crouched over the Omega’s back he’d pressed his lips against the red stain on his shoulder.

The Omega had sucked in a sharp breath then and squeezed his eyes shut, causing Phil to pull back and gaze down at him with worry.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No, no,” Dan had breathed in response, his eyelids slowly lifting. “It didn’t hurt at all.” He had turned to meet Phil’s gaze again. “It felt amazing.”

“Oh,” Phil had said. Then, “Oh…”

With a small grin, he’d leant forward and pressed his lips against the mark again, this time a little more firmly. His grin had widened as he heard the Omega gasp and then let out a small groan.

“Alpha…” he’d whispered. That was all the invitation Phil had needed. A moment later, he was pushing the Omega down onto the soft rug beneath them and climbing on top of him. As he’d grazed his lips over the bonding mark, the Omega had thrown his head back, moaning softly, so Phil had parted his lips and run his teeth ever so lightly over the skin of his Omega’s shoulder. He had been rewarded with a whimper and the feeling of the Omega’s hips moving against the rug beneath them. He’d paused for a moment, surprised by how worked up Dan already seemed to be. He’d heard that bonded Omegas enjoyed having their Alpha touch their bonding mark, but he hadn’t expected Dan’s to be this sensitive.

He’d bit down a little bit, not enough to hurt, but enough to make it feel like a bite.

“Phil,” the Omega had groaned. “Please…”

The Alpha had raised his head, gazing down at his Omega’s blissed-out expression with a slight grin on his face.

“Please what?” he’d murmured, bending his head over the Omega’s shoulder once more, ready to bite down again.

“Please, Alpha,” came the Omega’s voice. “Please fuck me.”

He’d hesitated for just a moment. He was still a little afraid, and his Omega could sense it. He’d seen Dan’s lips curl up in an encouraging smile.

“Or just make me feel good, any way you want to,” the Omega had said, raising his hips up just enough to let his buttocks rub lightly against the front of the Alpha’s pajama bottoms. Phil felt a jolt of pleasure rush up through his abdomen at the sensation and realized he was already rock-hard.

He’d taken a deep breath. He could definitely make his Omega feel good. He was certain of that. He’d returned the Omega’s smile and pressed his thickened member harder against his mate’s bottom, letting out a soft grunt of pleasure at the pressure.

“Mmm,” the Omega had responded in kind.

“Get on your hands and knees,” the Alpha had ordered then, and his mate had immediately obliged, turning his head once he was in position to gaze back over his shoulder at where the Alpha crouched over his backside. As he had watched, the Alpha had bent forward and pressed a small kiss just to the left of his hole. The Omega had felt his heart suddenly beating harder as he realized what the Alpha was planning to do. A moment later he had felt the Alpha’s tongue warm and slippery against his entrance and had clenched involuntarily at the strange, new sensation.

“Is that okay?” the Alpha had asked him, and he’d felt warm breath against his moist hole, making him shiver and squirm. “Do you want me to keep going?”

He’d bitten his lip and nodded. He hadn’t been quite sure he liked it yet, but he had definitely been intrigued.

“Good,” he’d heard his Master growl. “Because your little pink hole looks so delicious sticking up in the air like that.”

The Omega had felt his cock twitch in response to the Alpha’s dirty talk, but even as he let out a little moan of appreciation, he’d felt that warm, wet probing against his entrance again. The Alpha’s tongue lapped gently over him a couple of times before pressing harder. He’d closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the soft rug beneath him, focusing on the feeling of the Alpha’s smooth tongue pushing against his hole. Then he’d felt the tip pressing against his entrance, pushing a little way inside, and he’d gasped as his abdomen clenched in sudden excitement. He could feel the way his hole relaxed, opening up to let the Alpha’s tongue inside.

He had groaned softly as the tongue licked further in and then curled up, pressing against his rim.

“Ahn, yes,” he’d heard himself moan suddenly, the words falling from his lips without him meaning them to. The Alpha’s tongue was wriggling inside him, teasing his entrance and making it ache for more. “C-can you put your finger in?” he had panted after a moment. “Please…”

The tongue had disappeared then, and he’d felt a hand come up and run its fingers along his thigh.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he had heard his Alpha say. “There isn’t any slick right now, so—“

“Um, over there on the table,” the Omega had said, raising his head and opening his eyes to meet the Alpha’s gaze a little shyly. Despite everything they’d done up until then, it had still felt strange to look into his Master’s eyes and think about the fact that he’d just had his tongue inside Dan’s arsehole.

The Alpha had glanced toward where the Omega was looking and seen the little bottle of lube sat there. He’d raised his eyebrows.

“Where did you get that from?” he’d asked as he hopped up, giving his Omega’s butt cheek a soft slap and reaching over to grab the bottle.

Dan had blushed.

“Um, I may have talked to Omega Will about a few things…” he had muttered, looking down at the floor again.

“Oh,” he’d heard Phil say and then sensed him kneeling down behind him again.

He’d heard the bottle open and felt a hand on his bottom again, caressing the skin and making him shiver with anticipation. Then he’d felt Phil’s finger at his rim, slick with lube now, and a strong shudder had rolled through him.

“You want this inside you?” he’d heard the Alpha purr, his tone teasing.

“Yes. Please,” he’d breathed, looking back to see the Alpha’s pale eyes fixed sharply on his face. “I love feeling you inside me, Alpha.”

He’d seen his Master bite his lip, and then he’d felt the finger pushing in past the relaxed ring of muscle. He’d sucked in a sharp breath and squeezed his eyes shut. He was so much tighter now than when he’d been in heat. Slender though the Alpha’s finger was in comparison to his cock, it had still felt like he was being stretched almost beyond what he could bear.

“S-slowly, please,” he’d whispered as he willed himself to calm down and his muscles to relax even further.

He’d felt lips pressed against the skin beside his entrance again as the finger inside him slowed to a stop. Then he’d felt that warm wetness, the Alpha’s tongue, running along his rim once more. Until that moment he hadn’t stopped to think why the lube Will had given him was flavored, but now at last he understood. He might have laughed at the realization if he hadn’t been so caught up in what the Alpha was doing behind him. The tip of the tongue pressed into his hole, sliding slightly in next to the finger, and he couldn’t stop himself squirming a little at the shock of sensation that pulsed through him. After a moment, the tongue had withdrawn and the finger had started moving again, sliding more easily now, in and out, in and out. He’d sucked in another breath, though this time it was a gasp of enjoyment.

“More,” he’d murmured, eyes still closed tight so that his mind could focus on nothing but the sensation of the Alpha slipping his finger out and then two fingertips pressing against his entrance, meeting with resistance for only a moment before pushing inside and deeper. Then the Alpha bent his fingers, allowing the pads to apply a slight pressure a couple of inches in, and the Omega cried out in response. A shock of pleasure was spilling out from the place the Alpha had touched, through his abdomen and out into his limbs. He’d felt his dick twitch again and then a few drops of liquid leaking out the tip of it onto the rug below.

The fingers had pulled out and then pushed in again, moving slowly at first and then building up a steady rhythm, slipping in and out on the slick wetness of the lube. Each time they had passed over that spot inside him, Dan had felt more liquid leaking from his dick and the pressure building inside him dragging him closer to orgasm.

“Do you want me to make you cum like this?” he’d heard his Alpha ask.

“Yes,” he’d breathed at once, then, “No. I want… I want to feel you inside, Alpha. I want to feel your cock inside me.”

Before the Alpha could reply, he had pulled off of his fingers and turned, crawling up to the Alpha and reaching for the waistband of his pajama bottoms.

“I want you to fuck my mouth,” he had said, smiling up into the Alpha’s dazed expression.

He could see the outline of the Alpha’s hard dick inside his pajamas, and he had reached up and pressed a hand against it, giving it a soft squeeze through the fabric.

The Alpha had nodded vigorously, mouth gone slack and breathing heavy. The Omega had grinned and then slid down the pajamas and the boxers underneath together, allowing his Master’s dick to spring free, standing tall against his stomach. He’d taken a moment just to admire it, its flushed pink color, how impossibly thick it was, the bead of moisture that clung to the tip. He’d bent forward, grasping the shaft in one hand and then stretching out his tongue to lick the salty liquid from the end. 

He’d heard the Alpha gasp and felt his fingers come up to tangle themselves into the hair at the back of his head. He’d smiled again and then licked over the tip a few times, relishing the sounds of his mate’s breathing growing harder. Then he’d stretched his lips over the thick head, moist now with saliva and pre-cum, and sucked it a little ways inside his mouth. The Alpha had groaned and thrust forward a bit, pushing himself a few inches further in.

Dan had moaned in his throat, loving the feeling of his Alpha taking control of him. He’d pulled back a little and then slid down again, taking the cock even further in now that it was wetter, and once again the Alpha had pushed himself deeper, while low noises of pleasure rumbled through his chest. The sounds were causing the Omega’s dick to ache and leak even more, the pressure of his interrupted orgasm building even further within him, and he couldn’t resist reaching back and sliding one of his own fingers into his still-slick entrance.

“Fuck, Dan,” he’d heard the Alpha groan above him as he thrust his cock against the Omega’s tongue. “You look so sexy fingering yourself like that. Put another finger in.”

He’d tilted his head up a bit so that he could meet the Alpha’s eyes, and he’d held the other’s gaze as he slid his index finger out, brought it together with his middle finger and then pushed both fingers in at once.

“Fu-uck,” the Alpha had groaned, his hips jerking forward in response and thrusting his cock all the way to the back of the Omega’s tongue. Dan had had to pull back a little to keep from gagging, and for a moment all he could do was concentrate on taking deep breaths in through his nose. After just a few seconds, though, he had become accustomed to the full feeling so near his throat, and he was able to close his lips around the Alpha’s cock again and suck at it a bit.

The Alpha had moaned in his throat and begun making shallow thrusts into his Omega’s mouth, pulling back a little and then pushing in again, fucking slowly in and out. Dan had begun pushing his own fingers deeper inside his hole, beginning to spread them apart a little inside, loving the delicious feeling of being stretched open at both ends.

“Shit, Dan, your mouth feels so good,” Phil was mumbling, and Dan had glanced up to see that his eyes were closed and his head was tilted back as he knelt there fucking the Omega’s mouth. Dan had hummed in response and sucked the Alpha’s cock in deeper, drawing another low moan from him.

Suddenly, the Alpha had pulled back, his cock slipping from between the Omega’s lips, and he had taken hold of Dan’s face and pulled him up for an urgent kiss.

“I wanna come inside you,” he had whispered against Dan’s lips after a moment. “I wanna feel what it’s like to come inside your body. Is that okay?”

The Omega’s eyes had grown wide for a moment and then he had nodded. One breathless kiss later and the Alpha was turning him around and grasping his hips in both hands. Eagerly, he had thrust his bottom in the air again and propped himself up on his elbows while Phil had opened the bottle of lube and poured more out onto his entrance. He’d been expecting to feel the Alpha’s massive member sliding inside almost at once, but instead, he'd felt his fingers again, two of them probing inside and spreading him open just as his own had done. He’d made an impatient noise in the back of his throat.

“Shhh,” the Alpha had said, “As much as I can’t wait to get inside your tight little hole, I don’t want to hurt you.”

The Omega had whimpered in response but stayed quiet as the Alpha used his fingers to stretch him further and further open. It had made him feel so intensely vulnerable, to be open and exposed to his Alpha like that, he had almost come just from Phil’s fingers and the thought of him knelt there playing with Dan’s hole. But then the fingers had disappeared, and he’d felt the hot, round head of the Alpha’s cock rubbing against his slippery, stretched-out rim.

“Oh god, Phil, please fuck me,” he had whimpered, barely able to stand the empty feeling and the anticipation any longer.

He had felt the Alpha’s tip push forward a bit, and the muscles of his abdomen had twitched in anticipation, but then nothing else had happened. He’d whined a little, almost dizzy with want.

“Are you sure you really want it, Omega?” he’d heard the Alpha growl.

“Yes, please, Alpha. Want you so bad,” he had panted, eyes squeezed shut tight and arms shaking from the effort it was taking to hold himself up.

His hole had stretched just a little further open as the Alpha pushed just a millimeter or two farther forward and stopped.

“Please,” he’d begged, tears forming at the corners of his eyes. His own dick had been throbbing where it hung between his legs, and he could feel the pre-cum dripping freely from the tip of it. “Please fuck me.”

He had heard a soft chuckle from the Alpha, and then at last he’d felt the tip of the Alpha’s cock slide all the way past his rim, his eager hole stretching wide open to receive it, and the sensation was so exquisite and so overwhelming that all he could do was whimper and squeeze his eyes shut even tighter.

A soothing palm rubbing across his lower back had drawn him back down to earth. The Alpha was still sliding deeper inside, and the Omega had pulled in a ragged breath, lost in the sensation of being filled by the Alpha’s swollen member. He had been thankful when Phil paused for a moment, giving his body time to adjust to the massive stretch. The hand on his back had moved again, brushing lightly over the skin and helping him relax.

“Are you okay?” he’d heard his Alpha murmur, so he’d nodded, making a faint, satisfied noise in the back of his throat. He was more than okay. He was in heaven. “Good,” the Alpha had said and then pulled back a little and pushed forward again, groaning as he did so. “You’re so tight, Dan,” he’d breathed as his cock slid as far down as it would go inside the Omega’s hole.

“Harder,” the Omega had gasped, his own dick twitching as the Alpha’s cock pressed down against that one spot inside him. “Fill me up, Alpha. I wanna feel you cum inside.”

“Fuck,” the Alpha had groaned, pulling out and then shoving back in, causing the Omega’s entire body to rock forward with the movement. Then he’d pulled all the way out and pushed back in again, making the Omega let out a strangled moan, which was cut off as the Alpha slid back and then in again and then again and again. Dan could feel his hole stretching wider and wider, and still he’d wanted more. As the Alpha thrust forward, he’d pushed himself back, feeling his hole swallow up the Alpha’s cock until his ass cheeks were flush with the other’s hips. “Fuck, Dan, I’m so close,” he’d heard his Master pant. “I’m gonna cum…”

“Cum inside me, Alpha,” Dan had whined, feeling his own orgasm build with every thrust of the Alpha’s cock.

He’d heard a soft growl and slid back along the Alpha’s cock, and all of a sudden he’d been coming, his hips jerking downward as his dick spilled sticky cum onto the floor underneath him.

“I’m cumming,” he’d warned the Alpha in a faint voice as his hole began to rhythmically clench, and then he’d heard the Alpha’s breath hitch, and a moment later had felt the cock inside him throbbing as something hot and thick began to fill the inside of him. He’d moaned at the sensation. It was like he was being claimed all over again, his Alpha’s seed marking him inside just as he had already been marked on the outside.

“Ah, fuck, Omega,” he’d heard his master groan as his hips stilled with his cock plunged deep inside the Omega’s body. “Fuck, Dan,” he’d muttered again, his hands running up the other boy’s back and lightly gripping his shoulders for a moment. The sudden, unexpected pressure on his bonding mark had made Dan gasp and his hole clench again. “Fuck,” the Alpha had whispered, shuddering as the Omega’s body squeezed the entire length of his oversensitive member. He’d pulled out a moment later and collapsed onto the rug next to the Omega.

Dan had let himself sink down beside him, his arms and legs no longer capable of holding him up. He’d lain on his side so that he could face Phil and watch his expression gradually change from dazed to satisfied.

“My good little Omega,” the Alpha had murmured, still only half-coherent, and he’d stretched out his arms toward Dan, who had willingly crawled over to snuggle against his Alpha’s chest. He could feel the Alpha’s seed slowly slipping down his passage and beginning to drip out over the curve of his left buttock.

“I think we’re going to have to get this rug cleaned,” he’d muttered, burrowing his face closer against the Alpha’s chest. He had felt a a soft vibration against his cheek — Phil laughing.

“We can worry about that later,” the Alpha had said, so Dan had let it go and closed his eyes and just reveled in the knowledge that things were okay between them. Finally.

Things had gotten better after that, though relationship hadn’t exactly been perfect. It had taken them a lot longer to get used to how sensitive they’d grown to one another’s emotions and moods. Sometimes Phil would get irritated with Dan for worrying too much about something because it was hard for him to concentrate on his school work when he could feel how agitated his Omega was. Other times Dan would find himself on edge because he could sense how upset his Alpha was over something, but Phil would refuse to talk about it. There had been plenty of little arguments, which had more often than not ended in frenzied make-up sex.

They fought much less now that they had their own spaces and understood each other’s boundaries a little better. It helped that they were older now as well. He liked to think that they’d smoothed down each other’s rough edges over the years. They’d grown up together, and it showed in how easily they understood one another nowadays. Dan would be lying to himself if he tried to say that he wasn’t afraid that bringing Ellis into the picture would upset this balance they’d worked so hard to create.

After all, he knew from experience how drastically the introduction of a new person could change a relationship. It had been frankly terrifying to hear Omega Will describe what they had felt after Alpha Sophie had married and bonded with her Omega Wife. They’d sworn Dan to secrecy on the matter, asking him not to even discuss it with his Alpha if he could help it. It had been during Alpha Phil’s final year at the Academy, and Alpha Sophie had been married for about a month when Will had come to visit the main Lester household. Well, they’d claimed it was a “visit,” but they’d ended up staying for nearly three months, until it had come time for their heat and they simply couldn’t stay away from their Alpha any longer.

One night when Alpha Phil had been out with friends from the Academy, Omega Will had invited Dan up to the quarters they used to share with Alpha Sophie, and the two of them had sat on the bed watching old horror films on Will’s laptop and bingeing on popcorn. 

When the first film had ended, Dan had looked over to see that there were tears streaked down the other Omega’s cheek, and he’d suggested that maybe they should watch something other than horror. Omega Will had shaken their head.

“No, it’s not that,” they’d told him in a subdued voice, reaching for one of their pillows and hugging it close to their chest. “I just… I miss her so much.”

“Then why don’t you go back?” Dan had suggested because he hadn’t really understood. He’d still been very naive then.

He’d watched the other Omega bite their lips and shake their head vigorously.

“It’s too painful…for all of us.” They’d reached up and rubbed a finger under each eye. “She’s doing her best to try to make her new wife happy, and… I mean, I think that she deserves to be happy. We all deserve to be happy, but…” They had stopped and shaken their head again, their voice too choked by the tears they were holding back to continue.

Dan hadn’t known what to do, other than reach out and place a comforting hand on the other Omega’s arm.

“The truth is,” they’d said once they had their voice under control again, “I don’t miss her, really. I mean… I don’t miss the person who’s in our flat across town right now. I miss the Alpha who used to live here in this room. The Alpha who only smelled like us and who shared a bed with me every night—“ They had stopped on a sob, and Dan had flung an arm around them, pulling them against his chest. He’d grown a lot over the past year or so, and he was actually a little taller than they were now. They’d fit easily there, a fact that had made him feel suddenly lost. Hadn’t it been just a little while ago that they had held Dan like this? They’d seemed so strong and confident then, like they had all the answers.

“When she comes anywhere near me now,” he’d heard them whisper into his jumper, “all I can smell is her wife. I can’t stand to be near her. When I smell her scent now, I could almost die it makes me so miserable.”

Dan had soothed them and rubbed their arm like he would a scared child, and they’d eventually calmed down and gone back to watching films with him. But Dan hadn’t forgotten what they’d said. It had been hovering there in the back of his mind ever since, gnawing at him, whispering faintly to him that he’d been given a glimpse of his own future.

But that wouldn’t be his future, he’d decided. Not if he could help it.

 

**

 

Phil invited Ellis over two weeks later.

Classes had just finished, and they had a couple of days before they would each head off to their respective family homes. Ellis’s family was still in Singapore, where he himself had lived for most of his life. They’d only sent him back to England for university because it was his parents’ home country and they’d wanted him to get to know it and his family there better.

When Dan opened the door to let him in, the Beta’s cheeks were flushed a bright red from the cold outside and his black hair was flecked with melting snowflakes.

“I just finished packing,” the Beta announced, stamping his feet on the rug outside to clear his shoes of snow before he stepped inside. “Why do I always put things off until the last minute?”

Dan chuckled and then led the way into the lounge, where Phil was hovering over the dining table and a delicious-smelling pasta dinner that was laid out there for them.

“Wow,” Ellis exclaimed when he caught sight of the three-course meal, complete with salad, toast with bruschetta, pasta with a cream sauce, and a bottle of white wine.

“Alpha Phil cooked it,” Dan said, stopping beside the Beta and smiling over at his Alpha, who he could see had his fingers twined together in front of him as he often did when nervous.

“Really? You made all this, Phil?” the Beta asked, walking over to get a closer look.

Phil nodded and caught Dan’s eye over the Omega’s shoulder for a second. Dan smirked. Phil had told Ellis they wanted to have him over for dinner to celebrate the semester’s end. Dan wondered at what point the Beta would realize that they were actually trying to seduce him. He suppressed a slight chuckle at the thought and walked over to pull out Ellis’s chair for him. They’d seated him at the head of the table with the two of them on either side.

“Oh, thank you,” the Beta said, blinking as he sat down and tossing a quick glance at Dan from the corner of his eye as the Omega pushed the chair back in for him.

“Can I get you some salad to start out with?” Phil asked, settling into his own chair and reaching for Ellis’s plate.

“Oh, yes, thank you,” the Beta replied, and Dan didn’t miss the way that his cheeks, which had been changing back to their normal color as he warmed up, turned slightly pink again.

“Wine?” Dan asked, reaching for Ellis’s glass and the nearby bottle of Cabernet Blanc.

“Yes, please.” The Beta’s cheeks grew even pinker, and Dan had to hide another laugh. He was pretty sure their plan was working.

It ended up being an easy evening, with Phil and Ellis commiserating over the finals they would both have to take as soon as they returned from their holidays and Dan making Ellis double over with laughter with the story of how during his first year of uni, Dan had resorted to pouring water on Phil’s face to get him to wake up for one of his finals.

“But how did you end up sleeping so hard anyway?” the Beta asked, wiping the tears from his eyes when his laughter had subsided. “Were you drunk?”

Phil’s eyes met Dan’s across the table, and they both let out soft chuckles. Ellis looked between them, his expression puzzled.

“Let’s just say Dan really wore me out the night before,” Phil murmured, keeping his eyes locked on the Omega’s. Dan bit his lip and glanced at Ellis out of the corner of his eye. He saw that the Beta had one eyebrow raised, and the pink color had returned to his cheeks.

“Oh, of course,” he said, bending his gaze toward his empty plate. Dan did his best not to frown. He could tell right away that it had been the wrong thing to tell the Beta. Dan suspected he was jealous of Dan’s relationship with Phil.

“Are you done now?” Dan asked, reaching for the Beta’s plate. “We could take our wine and move to the couch where it’s more comfortable.”

“Sure,” Ellis said, looking up with a polite smile, so Dan stood and started clearing the plates, and Phil took his own and Ellis’s wine glasses and led the Beta over to the couch. It was times like this that Dan really appreciated how connected he and Phil were. They hadn’t even had to make eye contact for Phil to understand what Dan was trying to do.

While Dan put away the leftovers and loaded the dirty dishes into the dishwasher, Phil settled himself beside the Beta on the couch, just a smidgeon closer to him than he normally sat. Smiling up into the other man’s eyes, he leaned across him to set his wine glass on the coffee table, making sure he lingered just a second too long in the Beta’s personal space before leaning back. His own pulse had already picked up, and when he had settled himself against the back of the couch once more, he was pleased to see that the Beta’s eyes were bright and his lips slightly parted and he was watching the Alpha’s every movement.

“I’m going to miss hanging out with you over the holidays,” Phil murmured, holding Ellis’s gaze with his own. “I’m really happy we’ve gotten to know each other so well this semester.”

He could see the Beta’s pupils go a little wider within the centers of his dark eyes.

“Me too,” he replied, his gaze falling for just a moment to the Alpha’s lips, which he seemed to be realizing were unusually close to his own.

“I really like you,” the Alpha said, reaching a hand over and resting it on the Beta’s hand. “A lot, actually.”

The Beta’s eyes grew wide, and his tongue stretched out to swipe over his lips. Phil could see that his chest was heaving up and down with his quick, deep breaths.

“I like you, too.” His voice was soft and breathless. “Quite a bit.”

Phil smiled and leaned in then, closing his eyes and pausing near the other man’s face, allowing him to close the distance between their lips himself. The Alpha’s smiled deepened when he felt the Beta’s lips meet his in a brief, tentative kiss that was over almost as soon as it had started. Phil leaned back and opened his eyes to see a troubled frown on the Beta’s face.

“But, your Omega is just in the other room. Is it really okay—?”

“Dan was actually the one who pointed out that you liked me,” Phil said, giving the Beta’s knee a reassuring pat. “It hadn’t even dawned on me that you might want to be more than friends.”

“I do,” Ellis murmured, his gaze soft and longing. “But…is Dan really okay with it?”

“He likes you, too,” Phil said, letting the words linger in the air between them for a moment. He saw the Beta’s eyebrows twitch as he took in Phil’s meaning. “He’s willing to try having you in our lives, and so am I.”

There was a pause as Ellis’s eyebrows drew closer together.

“Are you suggesting that I date both of you?” he asked at last, his tone slow and matter-of-fact. Phil thought he must be trying to read the Alpha, make sure he didn’t accidentally offend him. It was a reasonable precaution to take. It wasn’t every Alpha who was willing to share their Omega.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Phil rushed to reassure him. “Dan isn’t going anywhere, of course. He’s my Omega, so you do have to be willing to accept that. But we’ve talked it over between us, and we’ve both agreed that as long as you can accept my relationship with Dan, we’re both fine with you only dating me, if that’s what you want… But if you’re interested in Dan, I think he would be as well.”

He saw the Beta’s eyes flit toward the kitchen where Dan was still filling the dishwasher. He and Dan had planned in advance that the Omega would give his Alpha some time alone with Ellis to feel out his thoughts on their proposition.

The Beta’s eyes flicked back to the Alpha’s intent expression.

“I’ve never been with an Omega before,” he confessed in a low voice. “I, um, I’ve always kind of had a thing for Alphas…” Phil didn’t miss the way his gaze dropped down to the front of Phil’s jeans for a moment, sending a thrill of anticipation through the Alpha’s body. “But… If you don’t mind me saying this about your Omega…” he trailed off, waiting for Phil’s permission to continue. Phil nodded for him to go on. “I do admit I’ve, um, thought about him a few times…” 

Phil felt his lips twitch up in a smirk.

“I can assure you we’ve both thought a lot about you,” he said and was pleased to see the way the Beta bit his lips in response.

Ellis took a deep breath in and out through his nose.

“I honestly have no idea how to even, um, you know, with an Omega, but I think I’d like to try,” he said at last.

“I can call him in here right now, if you’d like,” Phil offered, letting the hand on the other man’s knee run up his thigh a little way and then back down.

Ellis bit his lip and then nodded again, so Phil leant forward a bit and called into the other room.

“Dan, we can finish the dishes later!”

He looked back at Ellis and gave him a reassuring smile before Dan appeared at the kitchen doorway, looking between the two of them with a question in his eyes.

“Come here,” the Alpha ordered, patting his lap. It was their predetermined signal. If Ellis said yes, Phil would invite Dan into the room. If he’d said no, he would have asked Dan to go out to the store to buy them more wine.

The Omega was only too happy to obey his Alpha’s command, crossing the room immediately and climbing up onto the couch to straddle his Alpha’s lap. Knowing that Ellis was watching them with his mouth hanging slightly open, the Alpha pulled his Omega’s face down for a long, open-mouthed kiss. When they pulled back, Phil turned to the man beside him and beckoned him closer with a crooked finger. He complied at once, eyes falling shut as he leaned forward, and then Phil kissed him the same way, deeply, his tongue slipping between the Beta’s lips to search out the other’s tongue while his arm stayed curled tightly around his Omega’s back.

They broke apart panting, and before the Beta even had a chance to catch his breath, the Omega had a hand under his jaw and was pulling his face around to look at him.

“Can I kiss you, too, Beta Ellis?” he murmured, his voice low and inviting. Phil saw the Beta’s eyelids flutter as he nodded quickly and tilted his head back so that Dan could lean forward from Phil’s lap and place a soft, warm kiss against the Beta’s lips. While he did so, he let his hand slide from the Beta’s jaw down the curve of his neck and the front of his jumper until it reached the top of his jeans.

When Dan leaned back, the Beta was staring up at him slack-jawed, causing the Omega to bite his lip and duck his head, made shy by the intensity of the other’s gaze. Phil’s hand came up to turn the Beta’s face and let the Alpha claim his lips again, and when he heard the Beta’s breath hitch, he guessed that Dan’s hand had moved lower still. He smiled into the kiss as he heard the Beta moan softly in the back of his throat. He knew very well that his Omega was good with his hands.

He felt Dan move then, climbing up from his lap, and he pulled back from the kiss with Ellis to see that Dan had dropped to the floor between the Beta’s knees and was reaching with both hands to the button of his jeans.

“May I, Beta Ellis?” he asked, looking up at the Beta through his thick lashes.

“Yes. Please,” the other man whispered in a breathless voice, darting a glance at Phil, who just leaned forward and took possession of the Beta’s lips again.

While the Alpha’s tongue thrust between his lips and the Alpha’s fingers gripped his jaw, the Beta could feel the Omega sliding his zipper down, and then he gasped as he felt the Omega’s fingers grasp his half-hard dick and pull it free from his briefs. He had to break off the kiss when he felt the Omega’s tongue lap over the head of his dick, his mouth falling open and his eyes squeezing shut.

“Feel good?” he heard the Alpha rumble in his ear.

“Fuck yes,” he breathed and then fell silent as the Omega’s lips encircled the tip of his dick and sucked it up between them. Eyes still closed, he felt the Alpha’s hands pull his face close for another quick kiss and then disappear. He didn’t question the Alpha’s abandonment at first, too lost in the feeling of tight lips and a hot mouth sliding down onto his dick. Then his eyelids fluttered open and he looked down to see the Omega’s soft brown eyes fixed on his face and his pretty pink lips stretched around his dick. A movement behind the Omega caught his eye, and he looked up to find that Phil had moved the coffee table out of the way and was crouched down behind his Omega, pulling Dan’s jeans and boxers down to expose his smooth, cream-colored cheeks.

“Do you think our friend Ellis would enjoy watching me fuck this beautiful ass of yours, Omega?” the Alpha hummed as he ran his palms over the curve of the Omega’s bottom.

“Mmm,” the Omega moaned his agreement around the Beta’s cock, which was currently pushed all the way to the back of his throat, and the sound send faint vibrations pulsing through the Beta’s member.

“God, Dan, that feels amazing,” he muttered, not quite able to keep his hips from rising up a bit to push his dick even deeper. He immediately pulled back, afraid the Omega would choke, but when he looked down, all the Omega did was pull off for a moment, smile at him, and then suck his dick back down until he could feel it slip into the back of the Omega’s throat again. “Holy fuck,” he muttered, tilting his head back as a wave of intense pleasure rolled through him.

“Don’t worry,” came the Alpha’s voice. “My Omega loves having his mouth fucked.”

Ellis heard and felt the Omega moan again. He managed to open his eyes then and saw that the Alpha had two lubed-up fingers plunged deep into the Omega’s hole and his other hand had reached down to unzip his jeans and pull out his own cock. The Beta felt his heart stop for a moment at the sight of the Alpha’s massive length. He’d been with a number of Alphas before, attracted by their dominant personalities and protective tendencies. He could admit he was also attracted by the size of their cocks, and Phil’s had to be one of the largest he’d seen. He was glad he’d had practice taking an Alpha’s cock before because looking at Phil’s now as it stood erect and thick in the Alpha’s hand, he knew it was going to take a fair amount of stretching to get that inside him. Just the thought made his head swim with excitement.

He felt the Omega pull off again and looked down to see that his eyes were closed and his face tilted back, his wet, pink lips hanging open in a silent moan as he got lost in the feeling of the Alpha’s fingers inside of him. There were strands of his soft brown fringe caught in his long lashes, and without even thinking about it, the Beta reached up a hand and brushed them away, smoothing the hair to the side and out of the Omega’s eyes.

Dan’s eyelids fluttered open, and his eyes rose to Ellis’s face, meeting the Beta’s eyes for a long moment. The Beta had expected to see only bliss there, just the expression of someone lost in the pleasure of being fucked, but instead he saw more — fondness, gratitude…perhaps more emotions that he didn’t know Dan well enough to decode. The hand that had brushed Dan’s hair to the side was still poised next to his face, so he let his fingers run down Dan’s cheek to cup his jaw and turn his face up, and he bent down to give him a kiss that grew longer and deeper until he found himself pushing his tongue between the Omega’s lips to caress the Omega’s tongue with his own.

The Omega whined then, and Ellis broke off the kiss at last to see that the Alpha had pulled his fingers free and was rubbing the blunt end of his cock over the Omega’s slicked-up hole. As he watched the Alpha begin to slide inside, he felt Dan’s lips close over his own dick again, and he let out another moan of pleasure. He was close already, brought to the brink of orgasm by the Omega’s talented mouth and the undeniable eroticism of getting to watch the Alpha’s unbelievably thick cock fucking slowly in and out of him. He looked up, and his gaze was captured by the Alpha’s eyes, which stay fixed on his even as his hips thrust forward and backward, shoving his length into his Omega and then pulling it out only to shove it back in again. Somewhere down below the Omega whimpered.

“Fuck, I’m gonna come,” Ellis panted, his eyes still held by the Alpha’s. He expected to feel the Omega pull off then, but instead he only felt his dick being drawn even deeper into the Omega’s hot, wet mouth, and then a moment later he was coming, spilling his load onto the back of the Omega’s tongue. “Ahhh, shit,” he whispered, overwhelmed with how intense his orgasm was. It had been a while since he’d been this turned on during sex, and he could feel the shockwave of his release pouring out through his abdomen and down through his thighs and then throughout his entire body. He broke his gaze from the Alpha’s at last as his eyes squeezed shut and his head kicked back.

He lay panting against the back of the couch for a moment, trying to slow his breathing even as he felt the Omega’s lips sliding off his dick and his tongue lazily licking it clean. When he’d caught his breath at last, he opened his eyes and reached for Dan’s face again, bringing him up for a heated kiss. He felt the Omega’s tongue pressing between his lips, and he sucked on it for a moment, reveling in the sharp taste of his own cum there. It felt good to kiss the Omega, better even than he’d expected.

Dan pulled back with a soft cry all of a sudden, and Ellis looked up to see that the Alpha was bent over the Omega’s back, with one hand between the Omega’s legs tugging steadily his dick, and he was rocking his hips forward so hard that the Beta could hear the constant sound of their skin slapping together. As the Omega tilted his head back and moaned that he was coming, the Beta leaned forward again to twist his fingers into the Omega’s soft hair and press a kiss against his open mouth. A moment later, he heard the Alpha let out a groan and knew he had reached his peak as well.

He raised his head from Dan’s lips just in time to see the Alpha’s face screwed up in pleasure as he released inside of his Omega. The sight was so erotic that the Beta felt his own spent dick stir a little in appreciation. Then Phil was opening his eyes again and pulling himself gently out and the exhausted Omega was laying his cheek against Ellis’s thigh. It wasn’t until that moment, until he saw the Alpha’s cock slip from inside the Omega’s body that it dawned on him that they hadn’t used a condom. Of course. They were a bonded pair, and Dan must be on birth control. Why would they use a condom? Still, it was a tangible sign of what they meant to each other, and Ellis couldn’t deny it made him feel a twinge of worry. Was there really space for him between two people who were already so close?

“Hffff.” His thoughts were interrupted by a loud sigh from Phil, who had fallen in a heap onto the floor beside his Omega.

“Same,” the Omega murmured, his face still pressed into Ellis’s thigh.

The Beta couldn’t help laughing a little. At the sound, the Alpha raised his head from the floor a bit and met the Beta’s eyes.

“I hope you’re planning to stay the night,” he muttered, sounding sleepy. “I don’t think either of us has the energy to get up and see you out the door right now.”

“Yeah, that’d be great,” Ellis murmured, a tiny grin curling his lips.

A while later, when they’d all had turns showering and Phil had let Ellis borrow a pair of his pajamas, the three of them climbed into Dan and Phil’s queen-sized bed together with Ellis in the middle and the Alpha and Omega on either side.

When they’d all settled in, Ellis on his back and the other two snuggled against his sides, he thought it would be a good time to finally ask.

“So, um, I guess this means that we’re dating now?”

“If you want to be,” he heard Phil murmur.

“I do,” Ellis murmured back, turning to look at the Alpha’s face lying on the pillow beside him, the face that he was fairly certain he was already half in love with. Then he turned to look at Dan’s face resting on the pillow on his other side with his eyes half-shut and his hair spread out a little across the pale pillowcase. The Omega was gorgeous. He couldn’t deny that, nor could he deny that he had fantasized what it might be like to be with him. He’d just never dreamed that being with either of these men was a possibility, much less both. “I want to be with both of you.” He said it again, just to allow all three of them to hear the words out loud.

“Good,” the Omega whispered to him across the moonlit pillow. “Because I’ll have my heat just after we get back from Christmas break.” Ellis could have sworn he could hear him smirking.

“And I’ll have my rut,” came Phil’s voice from the other side.

The Beta could feel his heart rate picking up again. He’d been with an Alpha in rut once. Just once. It had been a memorable experience, to say the least.

“Have you ever seen an Omega in heat before, Beta Ellis?” he heard Dan ask in a seductive whisper, and the sound of his voice sent a shiver across the Beta’s skin.

He shook his head, still staring into the Omega’s shadowy eyes.

Behind him, he heard the Alpha let out a low laugh. The Omega smiled and then leaned forward to press a soft kiss to his lips.

“I think you’re going to enjoy it,” Dan whispered when he’d pulled back again. The Beta could definitely see now that the Omega was smirking at him in the dark.

He smiled back. He thought he would too.


	7. The Trap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alpha!Phil and Omega!Dan try to figure things out while home for Christmas Holidays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to split this off into its own chapter since the next one will be quite long. I hope you all enjoy!

Omega Will was frowning at Dan. 

The older Omega was sat on the rug in front of the fireplace in Omega Kat’s quarters, bent awkwardly over a pregnant belly with their hands poised above a wrapped gift they had just been tying a ribbon onto. It was the morning of Christmas Eve, and the three Omega slaves had gotten together for some last-minute gift-wrapping. When Omega Kat had left to accompany one of the house slaves to the shops to buy some emergency wrapping paper, Dan had seized the opportunity to tell Omega Will the news about his and Phil’s Beta.

“And how did Alpha Phil meet this Beta again?” they asked, glancing back down at the half-tied ribbon, though there was still a frown crinkling their forehead.

“They had a class together this past semester,” Dan explained, picking up a pen to carefully write Alice’s name on a tag made of gold-colored card. “They started hanging out together all the time, and then I realized that they liked each other.”

He frowned down at the messy letters he’d just written. He really hated his handwriting. He glanced over to where Omega Will was writing out Phil’s name in graceful, curlicued letters. He sighed.

“And you weren’t jealous?” Will was asking.

“I was,” Dan said, setting Alice’s gift aside and reaching for another one. “Until I realized that Alpha Phil didn’t seem to love me any less for having developed feelings for someone else.”

“Oh,” the other Omega said, and Dan could tell they weren’t convinced. After a moment, they set down their pen and leaned back a little, stroking their belly absentmindedly while regarding Dan with a measuring gaze. Aurelie, Alpha Sophie’s wife, had given birth to her first Alpha child earlier that year, so Will had at last been allowed their own pregnancy. They were in the sixth month now, and based on the marked change in their scent, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that they were carrying an Alpha. “Still, I can’t believe you would actually encourage your Alpha to date someone else.”

Dan felt a slight warmth creep over his cheeks, and he kept his eyes trained on the bow he was tying.

“He’s really hot,” he said in a voice so faint that Will almost thought they had misheard him at first.

“Who’s hot?” they asked, their frown deepening, and then, “Wait, the Beta is hot?”

Dan nodded, the warmth in his face flaring out further and turning into more of a burn.

The other Omega was silent for a moment.

“I didn’t know you were attracted to Betas,” they said at last, and Dan could tell that they were working to keep their tone neutral.

He shrugged a little.

“I, um,” he mumbled, “I’m kind of attracted to all the designations. Um, Omegas too…”

There was another long silence, and he couldn’t help peeking up at Will’s expression. They were staring at him with their mouth hanging a little open. Society had come a long way since the days when any pairing that was incapable of producing children was considered unnatural. Nowadays, while relationships between Alphas and Beta males or between two Alphas were rare, they were more or less accepted. There were those who liked to warn with a knowing look that an Alpha could only ever truly be satisfied by an Omega, but in general, people assumed that an Alpha knew their own mind and was capable of choosing the lover that suited them best. 

Even in more closed-minded days, no one would have thought much of an Omega like Dan being attracted to a male Beta like Ellis, who would be capable of giving him that one thing that all Omegas were assumed to desire most: children. However, even today when more people were open to infertile pairings such as Omegas and female Betas, relationships between two Omegas were still quite widely frowned upon. It wasn’t so much that they couldn’t produce children — and, in fact, it had been proven that in rare cases male Omegas were capable of impregnation — as that Omegas were still seen as being incapable of independence. There was still a widely-held belief that an Omega always needed an Alpha or Beta to look after them.

It was rare indeed for an Omega to openly admit feeling attraction to other Omegas.

“Don’t tell anyone. Please,” Dan added, worried by the other Omega’s shocked expression.

“No, no. Of course not,” Will assured him. “But does your Alpha know that?”

Dan ducked his head and nodded a little.

“Alpha Phil knows everything about me,” he said. “He was the first one I told, um, after I realized that about myself.”

Will nodded their head very slowly. They’d always known that Alpha Phil was unusually lenient with his Omega slave. If they were honest, they would have to admit that they were quite envious of the trust between their Alpha’s younger brother and his Omega. It wasn’t like they and their own Alpha weren’t close… Well, they’d been closer before she had married, but even now, they and Alpha Sophie had a deep understanding between them. And yet…they couldn’t imagine ever confessing to her that they had felt attraction to anyone else. They had always felt it was healthier for their relationship simply to keep such thoughts to themselves.

“Still,” Will said, “even if he can accept the fact that you are attracted to this Beta, I wouldn’t count on his acceptance extending to letting you act on your feelings. Even if he says he’s okay with it… Even if he really and truly believes he’s okay with it, he’s still an Alpha. The jealousy will get to him eventually.” They shook their head and gave Dan a warning look. “It won’t turn out pretty.”

A protest sprang to Dan’s lips at once. He was on the verge of defending Phil, of saying that he wasn’t like other Alphas, of even confessing to Will that his Alpha had happily watched while Dan pleasured the Beta, but he stopped himself. Even to his own ears, the words would have sounded like the delusions of a naive, young Omega. Will was older, wiser, more experienced, and Dan had no greater support for his own argument than that he felt it was true. He felt that he could trust Phil and that Phil trusted him just as explicitly. But there was no way he could prove that to anyone else.

The door opened then, and Omega Kat came bustling in with Dylan, the Beta house slave who had gone with her to the shops, both with their arms full of shopping bags. In the chaos of getting all the bags unpacked and unwrapping all the new supplies, Dan and Will’s conversation got pushed to the side, though neither of them stopped thinking about it for a long time afterward.

It wasn’t until the following afternoon, when all the presents had been opened and Christmas dinner consumed, that Dan and Phil found a free moment to Skype Ellis.

After spending the night at Dan and Phil’s flat, he had stayed for a lazy breakfast and lunch, until finally admitting that he absolutely had to go because a driver would be by his own lodgings in a couple of hours to take him to the airport. That had been nearly two weeks ago now, and he’d been texting and Skyping with them from his family’s home in Singapore as often as the time difference and their families would allow.

When the call picked up on the other end, the Beta’s smiling face appeared on the screen with a dark window to one side. It was nearly 11:00 at night where he was, and they could see rain streaming down the outside of the window glass.

“Merry Christmas!” he cried at once, waving both hands in front of the screen.

“Merry Christmas!” Dan and Phil replied in unison, then laughed at the unintended synchronicity.

“I swear it’s like you two are one person sometimes,” Ellis muttered, rolling his eyes though he was still grinning. “Oh my god, it’s not stopped raining for three days straight now. Please save me!” He clutched his chest and mimed a heart attack.

“Come back to England!” Phil said, laughing. He and Dan were snuggled up together in their bed with the duvet pulled all the way up to their chests and the laptop resting on Dan’s right knee and Phil’s left.

“Are you honestly telling him to come back to England to avoid the rain?” Dan scoffed, nudging his Alpha in the ribs.

“Wait, no,” Phil said, waving a hand. “That was a mistake—“

Ellis gave a chuckle and then shook his head.

“No, but England isn’t even half as rainy as Singapore,” he said. “And at least there it might snow instead.”

“Okay, fine then,” Dan said with a loud fake sigh, “come back to England.”

“I want to!” Ellis whined, leaning back in his chair a bit. “My family are all bugging me about why I’ve been away at uni for two and a half years and still haven’t brought anyone nice home.” He grimaced and gave a long-suffering sigh.

“What did you tell them?” Phil asked, and Dan could hear the faint note of trepidation in his voice. Under the blanket, he reached over and twined his fingers through the Alpha’s.

“Oh, I made some joke about being unable to attract nice people,” Ellis shrugged, exhaling a little laugh through his nose. “Unfortunately, they’ve caught on to my tactic of deflecting their questions with humor, so my mum just asked again when I was going to bring someone home…” He paused, his lips twitching a bit from side to side. “I told her maybe someday soon.”

Dan felt his Alpha squeeze his fingers slightly beneath the blanket, and when he glanced at Phil out of the corner of his eye, he could see the glint of happiness in the Alpha’s eyes. For just a moment, he felt…angry? Or hurt, maybe. He couldn’t quite understand the feeling, except… It just felt a little unfair. He knew Ellis was hinting at the idea of bringing Phil home to meet his parents, and Phil was getting excited at the thought of Ellis wanting to bring him home. It made Dan feel…left out. Of course it was absurd to imagine anyone’s parents being happy that they’d brought home a slave. And it wasn’t like Dan would ever be taking anyone home to meet his own parents.

He thought about them every now and then, his two mums and all his younger siblings, but not as often as he’d expected to when Phil’s Father had first bought him. It wasn’t that he hadn’t loved his family dearly, but it had frankly been a relief to leave that cramped and dirty house where the air was heavy with the scent of desperation. He hoped the money his Alpha Mother had made off of him had helped them make a better life. He hoped his younger Omega siblings were still free and hadn’t all been sold off like he had been.

“—love to! How about you, Dan?” His Alpha’s voice drew his attention back to the present.

“I’m sorry, Alpha. What did you say?”

“I was just telling Phil that there’s this ice cream shop I really want to take him to when we get back to York,” Ellis cut in, “And, if you don’t mind, there’s a cafe I think you’d really enjoy, Dan, that maybe the two of us could go to sometime as well?”

Dan glanced at Phil in uncertainty for a moment and then back toward Ellis’s face on the laptop screen.

“You mean, like a date?” Dan asked, still unsure. 

“Yep, exactly like a date,” Ellis said.

Dan could feel the blush extending from his cheeks all the way down to his chest. No one had ever asked him out on a date before.

“Um, that sounds really nice,” he murmured. “Thank you, Beta Ellis.”

“It’s my pleasure,” the Beta replied with a bright smile, and the blush in Dan’s chest settled into a warm glow.

Later on, when they were both bathed and pajamaed and curled up in bed again, though, the glow had faded, leaving behind a nagging question in the back of the Omega’s mind. At last, he turned to his Alpha and whispered his worries in the dark.

“Phil, are you really okay with the idea of Ellis taking me on a date?”

They were both lying on their sides in the very center of the huge bed, their faces close together on the pillows, though they weren’t touching at all.

“Yes, of course I am,” the Alpha replied at once. “If he wants to take you and you want to go, that is. Are you sure you really want to go?”

“Yes,” Dan answered just as quickly. “I…really like him.”

“Good,” Phil whispered, and Dan could see the shape of the moonlight on his cheek shift as he smiled.

“You aren’t jealous?” Dan asked, because the more he’d thought about Omega Will’s words from earlier, the more worried he’d grown. His Alpha had always been so kind and accommodating, but kindness had its limits. Maybe he really was fooling himself thinking that an Alpha would sit by and let someone else woo his Omega.

“I’m not,” Phil said slowly. “I thought I would be… I mean, at first it was just really hot imagining getting to watch someone else with you, but I thought…you know, once it was really happening, I would have to fight off my jealousy, but… I wasn’t jealous at all, Dan. Not just because it was really hot. It definitely was.” As he said this he pulled a hand from beneath the duvet and stroked it through the hair on the side of the Omega’s head. “The two of you seemed so into each other, and it just…kind of made me happy to see that you were happy.”

The Omega closed his eyes and let his thoughts run for a while as the Alpha’s fingers continued to slowly massage his scalp. At last, with a deep breath, he opened his eyes to meet Phil’s again.

“But what if you’re not there,” he asked in a small voice. “What if I go on a date with him and afterward we go to his place, and I let him touch me and make love to me without you there?”

The Alpha’s hand stilled for just a moment before turning to drag the backs of his fingers lightly down the Omega’s cheek. The Omega pushed his face up into the caress, almost instinctually drawn to his Alpha’s touch.

“I’m okay with that, Dan,” the Alpha said in a firm tone. “If it’s what you want, then I’m okay with it.”

“But I belong to you,” the Omega whispered. “I’m yours, Phil. You can order me to stop at any time, and I’ll have no choice but to obey.”

The Omega reached his fingers up and cupped them around the Alpha’s hand, pressing the palm flat against his cheek.

“You can tell me the same,” Phil replied, eyes studying his Omega’s face. “If you want me to stop seeing Ellis at any time—“

“No, but that’s not fair,” the Omega cut him off, gripping his hand even tighter. “That’s what I’m trying to say. It would be so unfair to Ellis and to you, too.”

The Alpha frowned.

“But our relationship is more important to me,” he said. “It’s always going to be my priority.”

Dan shook his head hard against the pillow.

“You can’t think like that,” he said, his tone urgent. “If we want this to work, neither of us can think like that. Maybe for now you and I are more important to each other than Ellis, but we have to give him a chance. We have to give him a chance to become just as important.”

“Dan…” the Alpha murmured, his forehead all wrinkled up. “Do you really mean that?”

“Yes,” the Omega breathed. His Alpha’s face was very close, but he didn’t need to see his expression to sense the uncertainty churning within him. Gently, he pulled the Alpha’s hand from his face and carried it down to his waist. Then he stretched his own hand out and slipped it around the Alpha’s back, pulling him close. He heard Phil’s shaky sigh as he rested his cheek against the Omega’s shoulder. “You’ll always be my Alpha,” Dan whispered. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

“I know,” came the softly-murmured response, “And you’ll always be my Omega.” As he spoke, he nuzzled his nose against the side of Dan’s neck, making the Omega shiver at the ticklish sensation. Then he felt the Alpha’s fingers come up to pull aside the collar of his pajama shirt, and he shivered again in anticipation of what was coming. “It doesn’t matter to me if someone else touches you,” the Alpha said, pressing the lightest of kisses against the skin of the Omega’s shoulder, making him whimper. “This mark proves you’re mine.”

“Even without the mark I would be yours,” Dan sighed, his eyelids fluttering shut as he gave himself over to the heavenly feeling of the Alpha’s lips caressing his bonding mark. “My whole life belongs to you.”

The Alpha paused, raising his head to look down at the Omega. When Dan opened his eyes to see why Phil’s lips had disappeared, he found a troubled expression on the face hovering just above his own.

“What?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t think of you that way,” Phil said. “I don’t want you to belong to me that way. If I could, I would set you free, but we both know it’s impossible.” The Alpha’s voice had grown rough and too deep. Dan knew very well that the law prohibited an Alpha from freeing an Omega slave they had bonded with. It was meant to be for the Omega’s protection, to keep an Alpha from bonding with them and then discarding them, but for Dan and Phil the laws governing their relationship had turned into a sort of trap. “I’m sorry about that, Dan. I should have freed you first.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” Dan whispered back at once. How many times had they had this same argument? And still his Alpha seemed unable to let go of his guilt. “If you’d freed me, we would never have been allowed to be together. I belong to you by choice, Phil. I knew the law before we bonded, and I didn’t care about it any more then than I do now.”

“You could have at least been free,” Phil groaned back, laying his cheek against Dan’s exposed shoulder. “I shouldn’t have been so selfish.”

“I’d rather be your slave than free and without you,” Dan replied, reaching up to stroke the Alpha’s hair. He’d said the same words so many times, had even at last broken down and told the Alpha the full story of how he had come to be Phil’s slave. Yet it had only served to make his Alpha feel even greater guilt.

“Don’t say that,” he heard Phil moan through a shaky voice. “You should have chosen freedom.”

“This is what I wanted,” Dan said, voice firm and unyielding.

“You shouldn’t have had to choose,” Phil replied, and Dan knew from the sound of his voice that he was close to tears. “It’s not right. None of this is right.”

“Shh, shh,” the Omega murmured, stroking the Alpha’s hair. “Us being together is right. Isn’t it?” he demanded. “It’s the most right thing in the world.”

“That sentence doesn’t make any sense,” Phil pointed out in a raspy voice.

“Oh my god, Phil,” the Omega responded, rolling his eyes. “Just shut up and kiss me.”

And in order to keep his Alpha from saying any more stupid things, the Omega lifted his face and pressed a kiss against his lips, and after a moment the Alpha kissed back, slowly and deeply. Then he pulled back and lowered his lips to their previous location, pressed fervently against the Omega’s mark, beginning the ritual again, the same ritual that Alphas and Omegas had performed since time immemorial. His Alpha’s touch sent a shower of pleasant tingles spilling down into the Omega’s body, and it wasn’t long before he was lost in pure sensation, all of the heavy thoughts drowned out by the giddy, airy feeling.

The Alpha couldn’t help but be affected by the Omega’s hormones, which as they passed from the Omega’s skin into his own urged him to take possession, to claim, to mark that which was his own. He parted his lips and bit down firmly, a thrill of excitement coursing through him at the Omega’s corresponding gasp of pleasure. The Alpha’s body couldn’t help but respond, filling with want, filling with the need to join more closely with his mate. But his mind couldn’t fully be silenced by these baser urges. In the Alpha’s mind, this was all he could offer his Omega in exchange for the priceless gift of his entire being — the pleasure, the closeness, the daily reassurance that he belonged just as fully to Dan as Dan did to him, if not in the eyes of the law, then at least in his own. 

He felt the Omega’s wandering hands against his back, his chest, tickling the soft hairs at the nape of his neck. He shivered and let his own hand slide beneath Dan’s pajama top, let his palm map out the slight curve of Dan’s waist, the arch of his back, the hard line of his shoulder blade. Every touch of his hands and movement of his lips against Dan’s skin made the Omega’s body more restless. It wasn’t long before he felt his hips pushing forward, pressing his half-hard member against the Alpha’s thigh.

“Touch me,” he heard the Omega demand, so with a smirk he slid his hand lower, down inside the Omega’s boxers to squeeze his plump ass cheek. The Omega whined in response, “More than that.”

With alternating soft and hard kisses against Dan’s mark, he pulled his hand from inside the Omega’s boxers and brought it round to the front of his pajama bottoms, rubbing his open palm lightly over the bulge there.

“Touch me,” the Omega begged again, and the Alpha let out a hot breath of air onto the Omega’s shoulder as he plunged his hand inside the front of his boxers. As his fingers cupped the Omega’s hot, slightly-soft shaft, the back of his hand rubbed against a sticky wet patch in the front of his boxers.

“If I make you cum in your pants, you’re gonna have to change clothes,” Phil murmured into his mate’s ear in a softly-teasing tone.

“I don’t care,” the Omega hissed, pushing his hips forward to rub his hardening dick against his Alpha’s palm.

The Alpha chuckled and moved his hand so that he could squeeze the fleshy tip of the Omega’s foreskin gently between his finger and thumb. Dan’s breath hitched before he let out an airy moan. With the Omega’s dick still only partially hardened, it was easy to slip his finger inside the foreskin and run it slowly underneath, circling the sensitive head that was already slick with precum. The Omega shuddered and whined again, and Phil bit down on his mark once more, relishing the way Dan’s whine rose in pitch and volume almost immediately. Phil knew how much he loved to have his foreskin played with. He’d even managed to get him off just with that once.

He slipped his finger out and grasped the flap of skin again, tugging up on it a couple of times and then using it to pull the Omega’s dick gently from side to side.

“Let me touch you, too,” Dan breathed out after a moment. Without waiting for Phil to respond, he pushed his own hand inside the Alpha’s boxers and took hold of his partially-stiff cock. “Already getting hard for me,” he observed as the Alpha drew in a sharp breath.

“Looks like we’re both going to be changing clothes,” Phil muttered, but he closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the crook of the Omega’s neck and let himself get lost in the feeling of a warm, smooth palm stroking up and down his shaft.

“Wait,” the Alpha said, reaching down with his free hand to still the Omega’s. When the Omega leaned back to give him a questioning look, he explained, “I want you to fuck my cock like you did that one time.”

The Omega blinked at him in incomprehension for a moment until he at last recalled the occasion his Alpha was referring to. It had been something they’d experimented with once that they’d both ended up loving.

“I can do that,” Dan said, his lips curling up in a seductive smile. Then he pulled his hand from inside the Alpha’s pajama bottoms, grasped them by their waistband and slid them down his thighs until his penis hung free and still only half-hard. The Alpha reached down and did the same with the other’s pajama bottoms, then grasped the Omega’s member in his hand and gave it a few firm pumps until it was fully hard. When he let go again, the Omega’s dick stood almost straight up against his abdomen. The sight of it took Phil’s breath away. He thought he’d never get over how beautiful every inch of his Omega’s body was.

“Fuck me,” the Alpha begged, leaning forward and biting down gently on the Omega’s shoulder again.

He heard Dan whimper and then felt a hand taking hold of his cock. The fingers of the hand ran down to the tip and then two of them slipped inside his foreskin, spreading it gently open. A moment later, he felt the hot, wet tip of the Omega’s cock slip inside the opening, sliding down and over the head of his own cock. He moaned softly at the sensation, the way the sensitive skin stretched to make room for Dan’s cock, and turned his head to press kisses into the side of his Omega’s neck. Then he felt Dan’s fingers around his cock, sliding his foreskin down even further until it covered all of his own member and part of the Omega’s as well.

“That feels amazing,” he murmured against Dan’s skin.

A soft breath of laughter tickled his forehead, and he tipped his head back just enough to see the Omega’s face.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing, I just…” The Omega’s eyes narrowed and he grinned. A moment later, Phil felt a hand around the sheathed heads of their cocks, squeezing slightly as it gripped his foreskin and slid it back and forth over the sensitive heads, causing them to rub and slip against each other. They both let out soft exclamations of pleasure, and then Dan finally continued, “It’s strange thinking that I’m basically inside of you right now.”

“Oh,” Phil said as Dan’s hand pumped slowly over both of them again, “I think it’s really hot.”

“It is,” Dan agreed.

Phil didn’t respond for a while, too focused on his Omega’s hand sliding up and down their joined shafts and the way Dan’s cock pushed in and out of his foreskin, stretching it wide open before slipping back only to push in again.

“Maybe you could try being inside of me for real sometime,” he said eventually.

That drew an unexpected laugh from his mate.

“I’ve been inside you plenty of times,” he muttered, grasping both their cocks in his hand and giving them a gentle shake from side to side. “You know you’re amazing at sucking dick.”

“You know that’s not what I m- Mmm,” Phil hummed, not quite up to forming a coherent rebuttal as his thoughts were occupied by the way Dan’s hand was making the heads of their cocks, slippery with precum, slip over and around and underneath one another. His breathing was getting heavier and heavier, and he knew he was getting close.

“Sounds like you’re almost ready to cum for me,” the Omega whispered into his Alpha’s ear, and then Phil felt Dan’s second hand reach down and cup his balls, squeezing them and pulling gently down on them a few times, and the movement sent shivers of pleasure shooting up through the backs of his thighs and towards his hole, making it clench a little in response.

“Keep doing that,” he managed to breathe out as his eyelids fluttered shut and he gave himself over to the heat drawing taut within his lower abdomen. Dan’s hand was sliding his foreskin back and forth while his other hand tugged at his balls and Dan’s dick rubbed back and forth over the head of his own dick. He could hear Dan’s breath getting quick and shallow, and he was hovering just on the verge of orgasm when he felt thick, hot cum start to fill the inside of his foreskin and he realized Dan had come first.

“Oh, fuck,” he muttered as the throbbing head of his cock was bathed in the sticky substance, and then a moment later he was coming too, his own cum spurting out over the heads of both of their cocks until it overflowed the seal his foreskin had formed around their shafts. He opened his eyes as he began to come down and in the faint light from the window, he could see thick gobs of cum sliding down the sides of the Omega’s cock as he slowly pulled out from inside Phil’s foreskin.

Quickly, Phil pulled back and then shifted his body down the bed until he could take Dan’s sticky cock between his lips and suck it clean.

“Nnnn,” he heard the Omega softly moan at the warmth and pressure on his member, still sensitive from orgasm. “You have the best mouth, Alpha.”

Phil grinned and then opened his lips, letting the Omega’s dick slide out so that he could use his tongue to finish licking it clean. He paused as he felt the rest of their cum start sliding out from inside his foreskin, set free by his shrinking dick. The ticklish sensation made him squirm a little, and he reached down to hold his hand beneath the tip of his dick so that the cum didn’t drip onto their sheets.

“Da-an,” he whined, crawling back up the bed and peering into the Omega’s eyes with a feigned pout. “Mine’s still got cum all inside.”

The Omega rolled his eyes, but he had a grin on his face as he scooted down the bed and then took the Alpha’s softening head between his lips. The Alpha watched with a muted whimper sounding in the back of his throat as he watched the Omega latch on and felt him suck the combined results of both of their orgasms out of Phil’s foreskin and into his mouth. The Omega slid the tip of his tongue inside the Alpha’s foreskin, running it over the head of his cock and against the inside of the soft flap of skin. He looked up and met his Alpha’s eyes, made sure he was watching before he swallowed, the suction drawing the last little bits of cum from within. Then he pulled off at last and crawled up the bed to collapse against his Alpha’s chest.

“Hey, neither of us had to change our pants,” Phil pointed out, pulling his own up along with his pajama bottoms while his Omega did the same.

“Go us,” Dan murmured, snuggling closer against his Alpha’s chest.

Phil sneaked one arm around the Omega while he pulled the covers back up over them with his other hand.

“I was serious, you know,” he said.

Dan tensed for a moment in his arms before Phil rushed to clarify.

“About you being inside me for real sometime.”

“Oh,” the Omega sighed, relaxing against the Alpha’s chest once more.

They both lay in silence for a moment, the argument that sex had allowed them to momentarily forget rushing all at once into their minds again. Phil’s arms closed even tighter around his mate, and he wished he could have back the haze of exhausted contentment he’d felt only moments before.

“I’d like to try it at least,” Phil said at last, forging ahead with the conversation. There was no point getting into it again. The fact of the matter was that they’d been trapped from the moment Phil had first caught Dan’s scent, not so much by the laws of their society as by whatever irresistible force had drawn them together in the first place. And somehow, the attraction between them had only grown over the years. Privately, Phil believed this was something no other relationship he embarked upon could hope to replicate, no matter how much he may love the other person. Yet he couldn’t deny that Dan was right. They had to at least give Ellis a fair chance. Phil sighed, reaching one hand up to nestle his fingers in the hair at the back of Dan’s head, and he heard a corresponding sigh from the Omega. “I want to try everything with you,” the Alpha murmured.

He felt a faint movement against his chest then — Dan nodding.

“Me too, Alpha,” he murmured and then let out a loud yawn. “Forgive me if I pass out now.”

“No forgiveness necessary,” Phil replied, letting out a sympathetic yawn of his own. He closed his eyes, and in a surprisingly short amount of time, they were both fast asleep.


End file.
